INDUSTRY 


FAMOUS   LEADERS 

OF 

INDUSTRY 


FAMOUS  LEADERS  SERIES 

Each,  one  volume,  illustrated  $2.00 
9 
BY 

CHARLES   H.  L.  JOHNSTON 

FAMOUS  INDIAN  CHIEFS 
FAMOUS  SCOUTS 
FAMOUS  PRIVATEERSMEN 
FAMOUS  FRONTIERSMEN 
FAMOUS  DISCOVERERS  and  EX- 
PLORERS of  AMERICA 
FAMOUS     GENERALS     OF     THE 
GREAT  WAR 

9 

BY 

EDWIN  WILDMAN 
FAMOUS  LEADERS  of  INDUSTRY 

* 

THE   PAGE   COMPANY 

53    BEACON    STREET,    BOSTON,    MASS. 


THOMAS    ALYA   EDISOX 


(See  page  115) 


FAMOUS  LEADERS 


OF 


INDUSTRY 


THE  LIFE  STORIES  OF  BOYS  WHO  HAVE  SUCCEEDED 


By 
EDWIN  WILDMAN 

Editor  of  The  Forum,  author  of  "Reconstructing 

America  —  Our  Next  Big  Job,"  "A&uinaldo, 

A  Narrative  of  Filipino  Aspirations,"  etc. 


Illustrated 


BOSTON    *    THE  PAGE 
COMPANY   *   MDCCCCXX 


INTRODUCTION 

Boys,  these  are  stories  of  boys,  perhaps  like  your- 
selves—  young,  ambitious,  full  of  grit  and  anxious  to 
make  of  your  lives  a  success,  both  in  earning  money, 
building  a  business,  and  gaining  honor  and  prestige 
among  your  fellows. 

Success  is  a  hard  road,  as  you  will  learn  in  reading 
of  the  struggles,  obstacles  overcome,  disappointments 
and  unremitting  devotion  to  their  ambition  of  these 
FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

They  did  not  live  joyless  lives;  they  found  pleasure 
in  their  work,  because  they  loved  their  work  and  hoped 
to  get  on  in  the  world.  In  preparing  these  stories  I 
have  chosen  mostly  boys  in  different  lines  of  work,  all 
of  whom  succeeded  in  the  business  world,  so  that  what- 
ever is  your  bent  you  may  find  help  and  inspiration  in 
the  success  of  some  other  boy  who  commenced  at  the 
bottom  and  worked,  round  by  round,  to  the  top. 

The  conditions  in  the  business  world  of  to-day  are  not 
quite  the  same  as  they  were  when  these  boys  were  young. 
But  remember,  the  principles  of  success  —  the  per- 
sistency of  purpose,  the  zeal  for  hard  work  and  the 
necessity  of  putting  in  it  your  love  of  it,  and  your  en- 
ergy for  it  —  are  the  same.  The  opportunity  is  as 
great  to-day.  The  undeveloped  resources  of  this  great 
country  are  calling  for  boys  with  brains  and  ambition. 


INTRODUCTION 

Science  lias  opened  up  new  fields,  the  increasing  popula- 
tion is  offering  larger  markets,  and  our  broadening  trade, 
extending  into  all  parts  of  the  world,  beckons  the  boys 
of  to-day  to  prepare  themselves  for  the  tasks  and  oppor- 
tunities that  await  them. 

This  is  a  great  country,  the  country  of  greatest 
opportunity ;  a  country  that  provides  education  in  every 
vocation ;  and  jobs  and  ownership  and  control  await  the 
boys  who  are  fit  and  who  make  the  fight  for  success. 

What  others  have  done,  you  can  do  —  never  forget 
that  —  and  make  your  life  a  success  by  beginning  early 
and  never  letting  up  until  recognition  and  compensation 
are  yours,  by  the  work  wrought  by  your  own  hands  and 
brains. 

EDWIN  WILDMAN. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PHILIP  DANFORTH  ARMOUR      ....         3 

California  Pioneer  and  Chicago  Packing  King 

P.  T.  BARNUM 17 

The  World's  Greatest  Showman 

ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL       .          .         .         .37 

Immortal  Telephone  Inventor,  and  Humanitarian 

JOHN  M.  BROWNING       .....       51 

The  Gun  Wizard  and  Inventor  of  the  Machine-Gun 

WILLIAM  ANDREWS  CLARK       ....       67 

Montana  Copper  King  and  United  States  Senator 

WILLIAM  L.  DOUGLAS 81 

The  Boy  Who  Pegged  Shoes  and  became  Governor 

JAMES  BUCHANAN  DUKE  ....       93 

American  Tobacco  and  Cigarette  King 

GEORGE  EASTMAN 105 

Who  Invented   the  Kodak  and  Popularized  Photog- 
raphy 

THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON     .....     115 

Electrical  Wizard  and  World's  Greatest  Inventor 

HENRY  FORD  ......     131 

The  Aladdin  of  the  Automobile  Industry 

CHARLES  GOODYEAR          .....     147 

Inventor   of   Vulcanized  Rubber 

HENRY  JOHN  HEINZ       .....     157 
Pittsburgh  Pickle  King  and  Sunday-School  Leader 

CYRUS  HALL  McCoRMiCK          ....     167 

Inventor  of  the  Reaping  Machine 

HUDSON  MAXIM       .          .          .          •          •          .181 
Poet,  Philosopher,  and   Wizard  of  High  Explosives 

JOHN  H.  PATTERSON 195 

The   Industrial    Genius    Whose    Ruling    Passion   has 
been  to  make  things  "go  better" 


x  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER    ....     213 
Oil  King  and  World's  Greatest  Industrial  Leader 

CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB 229 

Steel  King  and  Submarine  Boat  Builder 

ISAAC  MERRITT  SINGER  . .         .         .         .         .     247 

Inventor  of  the  Sewing  Machine 

Louis  FRANKLIN  SWIFT  .....     259 

Head  of  the  World's  Largest  Meat-Packing  Business 

JOHN  WANAMAKER          .         .         .         .         .271 

America's  Foremost  Retail  Merchant  and  Originator 
of  the  Department  Store 

GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE    .....     285 
Inventor  of  the  Railroad  Air-Brake 

JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS      .....     297 

Wizard  of  Autos  and  Airplanes 

FRANK  W.  WOOLWORTH 311 

Magician  of  the  5  and  10  Cent  Store 

ORVILLE  AND  WILBUR  WRIGHT  ....     327 

Who  achieved  immortal  Fame  as  Airship  Inventors 

LINUS  YALE  AND  HENRY  E.  TOWNE  .         .         .     341 

Who  Revolutionized  Lock-Making 

ADOLPH  ZUKOR 353 

Motion  Picture  Magnate 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON  (see  page  115)  Frontispiece 
PHILIP  DANFORTH  ARMOUR  ....  3 
PHINEAS  TAYLOR  BARNUM  .  .  .  .17 
ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL  .  .  .  .37 
JOHN  M.  BROWNING  .  .  .  .  .51 
WILLIAM  ANDREWS  CLARK  ....  67 

WILLIAM  L.  DOUGLAS 81 

JAMES  BUCHANAN  DUKE          ....       93 

GEORGE  EASTMAN 105 

HENRY  FORD 131 

CHARLES  GOODYEAR         .         .         .         .         .147 

HENRY  JOHN  HEINZ       .         .         .         .         .157 

CYRUS  HALL  MCCORMICK        ....     167 

HUDSON  MAXIM      .         .         .         .         .         .181 

JOHN  H.  PATTERSON       .         .         .         .         .195 

JOHN  DAVISON  EOCKEFELLER  ....     213 

CHARLES  MICHAEL  SCHWAB     .         .         .         .229 

ISAAC  MERRITT  SINGER  .....     247 

Louis  FRANKLIN  SWIFT 259 

JOHN  WANAMAKER 271 

GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE 285 

JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS 297 

FRANK  W.  WOOLWORTH 311 

WILBUR  WRIGHT 327 

ORVILLE  WRIGHT 334 

LINUS  YALE  .......     341 

HENRY  E.  TOWNE 346 

ADOLPH  ZUKOR 353 

JESSE  L.  LASKY      ......     357 

xi 


PHILIP  DANFORTH  ARMOUR 

CALIFORNIA  PIONEER  AND  CHICAGO 
PACKING  KING 


PHILIP   DANFORTH   ARMOUR 


FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF 
INDUSTRY 

PHILIP  DANFORTH  AKMOUR 

CALIFORNIA  PIONEER  AND  CHICAGO 
PACKING  KING 

DIGGING  ditches  and  building  sluices  for  gold 
mines  at  $5  a  day  —  or  $10  a  night  —  in  a 
California  gold  rush  city  was  the  way  nineteen- 
year-old  Philip  Danforth  Armour,  founder  of  Ar- 
mour &  Company,  started  his  long  and  successful  busi- 
ness career. 

Young  Armour  had  walked  all  the  way  to  the  Golden 
State  from  his  home  in  Stockbridge,  New  York,  in  six 
months,  dodging  Indians  and  suffering  great  privations, 
sometimes  nearly  starving.  Sluice  building  was  less  ro- 
mantic than  delving  for  elusive  gold,  but  in  the  main 
it  paid  better.  Sometimes  the  young  man  worked  all 
night.  His  back  was  sore,  but  his  hopes  were  high  and 
he  worked  and  saved  his  money. 

Phil,  as  he  was  known  by  all  his  friends  —  and  be- 
fore he  died  he  had  them  in  all  parts  of  the  world  — 
was  born  on  a  farm.  The  whole  Armour  family  were 
farmers.  The  old  family  plow,  dating  back  to  pre- 
Revolutionary  times,  is  still  in  possession  of  the  family 
and  can  be  seen  at  the  Chicago  Stockyards  at  this  day. 

3  " 


4 "    'FAMbtJS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTEY 

From  the  time  he  was  born,  in  1832,  until  he  left  the 
farm,  Phil  was  the  most  active  and  energetic  young- 
ster in  his  home  town.  All  who  knew  him  admired 
his  soundness  of  judgment  and  his  desire  to  be  con- 
tinually accomplishing  something.  He  could  not  be 
idle. 

The  rush  for  gold  in  California  was  at  its  high  mark 
when  Phil  reached  the  age  of  nineteen.  Farm  life  be- 
came irksome  to  the  ambitious  youth,  and,  like  many 
others,  he  cast  anxious  glances  toward  the  West  —  the 
unknown  land  —  where  stories  of  untold  wealth  were 
born  and  floated  eastward  on  every  breeze.  Mother 
Armour,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  family,  was  too  sensi- 
ble and  loving  to  permit  her  boy  to  run  away,  so,  with 
her  blessing  and  several  hundred  dollars  in  cash,  Phil 
with  a  few  companions  left  the  old  homestead  and 
started  on  foot  for  the  land  of  the  gold-paved  streets. 

It  was  quite  an  undertaking.  One  member  of  the 
party  died,  two  decided  it  was  too  far  and  turned  back. 
Phil  and  the  remainder  of  the  party,  however,  trudged 
on.  At  Independence,  Kansas,  they  purchased  a 
prairie  schooner  and  the  question  of  whether  to  pur- 
chase oxen  or  mules  to  draw  it  arose.  Some  members 
of  the  party  wanted  mules,  because*  they  thought  they 
could  travel  faster.  The  party  finally  decided  to  pur- 
chase oxen,  and  the  wisdom  of  this  course  became  ap- 
parent in  a  few  days,  when  the  schooner  began  passing 
other  schooners  which  had  been  compelled  to  stop  to 
let  the  mules  recover  from  attacks  of  sore  feet. 

The  trip  from  Stockbridge,  New  York,  took  six 
months,  and,  as  he  was  footsore  and  weary,  Phil  spent 


PHILIP  DANFOBTH  ABMOUK  5 

a  day  or  two  in  looking  the  situation  over  in  California. 
After  studying  conditions  carefully  Phil  showed  his 
good  judgment  —  which  men  admired  him  for  in  later 
years  and  which  he  frequently  demonstrated  in  business 
enterprises  —  by  deciding  to  build  sluices  instead  of 
taking  chances  on  becoming  suddenly  rich  or  being 
everlastingly  poor  searching  for  gold.  Besides,  he 
reasoned,  building  sluices  required  plain  labor,  it  was 
true,  without  excitement,  chance  or  glamor,  but  it 
would  be  the  most  dependable  occupation  in  the  long 
run  for  one  would  know  just  how  much  one  was  going 
to  make  at  the  end  of  a  day's  work.  A  five-dollar  gold 
piece  in  the  pocket,  he  thought,  was  better  than  fifty- 
dollars'  worth  of  gold  dust  somewhere  in  the  "  dig- 
gins.'' 

Phil  was  strong  and  a  willing  worker,  so  he  built  a 
great  many  sluices.  In  fact,  he  worked  day  and  night. 
Instead  of  working  with  his  hands  all  the  time  he  used 
his  head,  too,  and  finally  decided  to  take  contracts  to 
build  sluices,  thereby  giving  employment  to  many 
miners  who  were  without  funds  and  who  wished  to  earn 
money  to  return  home.  Business  was  good,  as  there 
were  many  miners  who  wanted  sluices  built.  Phil  pros- 
pered. 

After  five  years,  during  which  time  he  worked  hard 
and  saved  his  money,  young  Armour  had  accumulated 
a  few  thousand  dollars.  This  he  knew  would  buy  the 
best  farm  in  Oneida  County,  New  York,  and,  as  that 
was  as  much  as  any  young  man  in  his  day  could  de- 
sire, he  started  homeward  with  visions  of  marrying  the 
girl  he  left  behind.  When  he  arrived  he  found  she  had 


6   FAMOUS  LEADEKS  OF  INDUSTRY 

married  another.  Somehow,  when  he  learned  of  this, 
the  several  farms  offered  for  sale  did  not  appeal  to 
him,  so  he  started  for  other  parts  to  stake  his  fortune. 

It  so  happened  that  on  his  return  from  California 
young  Phil  had  rested  for  two  days  in  Milwaukee.  It 
was  then  a  prosperous,  growing  city  —  the  gateway  to 
the  West.  Youthful,  bewhiskered  Argonauts,  some 
high  with  hope  and  others  returning  with  plenty  of 
California  gold,  halted  there  on  their  cross-continental 
journeys.  Chicago,  eighty-five  miles  to  the  south,  was 
somewhat  behind  in  the  race  for  supremacy  because  of 
its  low  marshy  land.  Phil  decided  Milwaukee  was  the 
logical  place  to  stake  his  small  fortune  in  trade.  Op- 
portunity offered  itself  and  he  joined  with  Fred  B. 
Miles,  on  March  1,  1859,  in  the  produce  and  commis- 
sion business.  Each  man  put  five  hundred  dollars  into 
the  undertaking.  The  enterprise  prospered  from  the 
start.  It  handled  the  smoked  and  pickled  meats  then 
in  great  demand  by  travelers,  in  caravans  going  to  and 
from  the  coast,  because  it  was  something  that  would 
keep.  At  this  time  the  farmers  salted  and  smoked  hams 
and  brought  them  to  town  with  furs,  pelts  and  bags  of 
wheat. 

The  firm  of  Miles  &  Armour  prospered  during  its 
three  years  of  existence  and  P.  D.  Armour  became  well 
known  in  business  circles.  In  1863  John  Plankinton, 
the  largest  packer  in  Milwaukee  at  that  time,  needed  a 
partner  in  his  business,  and  P.  D.  Armour  succeeded 
Frederick  Layton,  the  firm  becoming  Plankinton  & 
Armour.  Pork-packing  was  the  chief  business  of  the 
new  firm.  Both  John  Plankinton  and  P.  D.  Armour 


PHILIP  DANFORTH  AEMOUE  7 

were  "hard  workers.  They  came  to  work  at  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  worked  hard  until  late  at  night  —  and 
business  boomed. 

After  the  Civil  War  Chicago  speedily  passed  Mil- 
waukee in  the  contest  for  commercial  success  and  Philip 
Armour  prevailed  upon  his  brother,  H.  O.  Armour,  to 
go  to  New  York  and  open  the  house  of  Armour,  Plank- 
inton  &  Co.,  commission  merchants.  Joseph  F.  Ar- 
mour took  charge  of  the  Chicago  office,  which  as  yet 
did  no  meat-packing.  The  Union  Stockyards  com- 
menced operation  in  1865  and  in  1867  the  Chicago 
house  of  the  firm  commenced  packing  hogs  under  the 
name  of  Armour  &  Company.  The  packing  of  hogs 
exclusively  was  the  business  of  the  new  firm  for  eight 
years. 

The  open  ranges  of  the  West,  feeding-places  for  the 
bison  of  Mr.  Armour's  boyhood  days,  were  by  this 
time,  however,  becoming  the  seat  of  extensive  grazing 
operations  for  cattle.  Huge  ranches  were  beginning  to 
spring  up  and  cattle  commenced  coming  to  the  markets. 
In  1878  Armour  &  Company  began  killing  cattle,  and 
in  1880  sheep  were  first  slaughtered. 

Armour  &  Company,  under  the  direction  of  P.  D. 
Armour,  began  developing  new  markets  in  all  direc- 
tions in  order  to  care  for  their  increased  trade,  which 
grew  with  the  development  of  the  country.  In  1878 
the  refrigerator-car  was  perfected,  and  this  important 
event  systematized  the  marketing  of  fresh  meat.  Mr. 
Armour  saw  the  importance  of  this  and  knew  that  the 
refrigerator-car  was  the  "  open  sesame  "  to  a  business 
of  tremendous  proportions.  He  saw  how  it  would  link 


8   FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  meat-producing  sections  of  the  great  West  to  the 
more  densely  populated  and  heavy  meat-consuming  cen- 
ters of  the  East. 

Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  no  such  thing  as  an 
adequate  fresh  heef  supply  in  the  East  and  such  West- 
ern heef  as  got  there  went  alive  in  stock-cars.  Mov- 
ing cattle  from  the  prairies  where  production  costs  were 
low  to  the  Eastern  centers  of  consumption  where  graz- 
ing lands  did  not  exist  entailed  transportation  which 
was  hoth  poor  and  costly.  The  refrigerator-car,  Mr. 
Armour  saw,  would  offer  a  way  to  get  beef  from  the 
West  to  the  East  even  in  summer  time,  and  he  started 
out  to  take  advantage  of  this. 

He  encountered  a  snag,  however,  as  the  railroads  did 
not  take  kindly  to  the  suggestion  that  they  build  re- 
frigerator-cars for  the  transportation  of  fresh  meats. 
This  did  not  deter  Mr.  Armour,  for  he  built  his  own 
fleet  of  refrigerator-cars.  Business  expanded  rapidly, 
due  to  the  novel  opportunity  of  eating  fresh  meat  in 
what,  in  those  days,  was  considered  the  "  off  season," 
and  Armour  &  Company  grew  as  new  fields  of  en- 
deavor opened  up. 

Philip  Armour  understood  thoroughly  the  science  of 
eliminating  waste.  This  principle  of  turning  every- 
thing into  account  was  carried  out  persistently  by  him 
for  forty  years  and  was  chiefly  responsible  for  his  suc- 
cess in  later  life  much  the  same  as  he  had  obtained 
his  financial  nest-egg  in  California  by  saving  while  he 
was  digging  ditches.  When  he  established  the  Chicago 
firm  of  Armour  &  Company  he  still  was  governed  by  the 
principles  of  industrial  thrift,  and,  consequently,  set 


PHILIP  DANFOBTH  ABMOUR          9 

about  to  utilize  waste  .material  which  previously  had 
been  thrown  away.  In  other  words,  he  started  to  de- 
velop a  line  of  by-products  from  the  various  parts  of 
the  animals  slaughtered,  not  sold  as  meat,  and  which 
to-day  is  of  such  tremendous  economic  importance  to 
the  world. 

Instead  of  paying  somebody  to  haul  the  waste  away, 
as  had  been  the  custom,  Philip  Armour  started  the 
manufacture  of  glue,  fertilizer  and  soap.  Many  other 
lines  of  by-products  were  added  from  time  to  time  until 
to-day  they  are  an  important  part  of  the  packing  indus- 
try. Without  these  by-products  fresh  meat  under  pre- 
vailing prices  for  the  live  animals  would  be  out  of 
reach  of  the  average  individual.  Even  before  the  by- 
product line  was  developed  to  the  nth  power  of  per- 
fection it  is  to-day,  Philip  Armour  used  to  say : 

"  Give  me  the  waste  from  the  animals  slaughtered 
and  I'll  make  more  money  than  the  fellow  selling  the 
meat." 

From  1890  to  1900  the  firm  of  Armour  &  Company 
continued  to  grow  under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Armour. 
It  expanded  until  it  became  international  in  scope. 

P.  D.  Armour  always  was  a  worker  —  even  to  the 
day  of  his  death  he  was  actively  engaged  in  his  busi- 
ness. He  was  a  human  dynamo  with  unlimited  power. 
He  did  not  follow  others,  he  led.  Because  of  his  in- 
defatigable energy  and  because  he  had  the  faculty  of 
choosing  the  right  men  for  the  right  jobs  he  succeeded 
in  building  up  a  great  international  industrial  enter- 
prise which  demonstrated  its  wonderful  organization, 
efficiency  and  worth  during  the  recent  World  War.  He 


10  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

worked  from  early  morning  until  late  at  night  even 
after  he  had  acquired  a  fortune.  He  was  the  first  one 
down  in  the  morning  and  the  last  to  leave.  He  used  to 
say  that  the  man  who  got  in  first  was  the  man  who  won. 
Quick  judgment  plus  quick  action  was  his  formula  for 
success.  That  he  was  quick  to  act  and  quick  to  judge 
is  demonstrated  by  many  interesting  things  told  about 
him. 

One  of  the  most  spectacular  of  his  triumphs  was  his 
shattering  of  an  attempted  wheat  corner  in  '93.  At 
that  time  Mr.  Armour  was  personally  handling  a  grain 
business  which  he  had  created  as  a  side  line  during 
his  meat-packing  activities.  Because  of  the  panic,  cash 
grain  in  Minneapolis  and  other  Northwestern  grain  cen- 
ters was  selling  at  such  great  discounts  under  the  Chi- 
cago May  future  that  a  large  profit  could  be  made  by 
buying  up  country  grain  and  selling  the  Chicago  May 
against  it.  Mr.  Armour  bought  several  million  bushels 
in  the  Northwestern  market. 

At  the  same  time  a  combination  of  rival  grain  op- 
erators bought  up  all  cash  grain  in  Chicago  and  re- 
fused to  move  it  out.  As  the  law  decreed  that  all  grain 
be  kept  in  registered  elevators,  this  move  by  the  com- 
bine did  not  leave  any  elevator  room  in  Chicago  for  Mr. 
Armour's  Northwestern  wheat.  With  sixteen  hundred 
cars  of  wheat  waiting  on  the  tracks,  three  hundred  boat- 
loads on  Lake  Michigan  and  no  elevator  room,  Mr.  Ar- 
mour discovered  he  was  up  against  the  crisis  of  his 
life. 

True  to  his  past  performances,  it  didn't  take  him  long 
to  decide  what  to  do. 


PHILIP  DANFOETH  ARMOUR         11 

"  I'll  build  an  elevator  and  hold  it,"  he  declared,  amid 
protests  from  architects  and  advisers  who  said  this 
would  be  impossible  to  accomplish  inside  of  six  months. 

"  Six  months  nothing !  "  Mr.  Armour  retorted  vig- 
orously. 

It  was  noontime  and  he  grabbed  a  telephone  and 
called  a  contractor.  By  five  o'clock  that  day  the  plans 
of  a  three-million-bushel  elevator  were  drawn.  By 
seven  o'clock  electric  lights  were  installed  and  excava- 
tions begun.  Despite  the  fact  that  labor  was  at  a 
premium  because  of  the  Chicago  World's  Fair  the  ele- 
vator was  completed  and  receiving  grain  in  just  forty- 
two  days.  The  combine  was  defeated. 

Mr.  Armour  was  quick  to  do  things  not  only  in  busi- 
ness but  in  whatever  he  undertook  to  do.  In  the  old 
Plymouth  Church  one  Sunday  morning,  Rev.  F.  W. 
Gunsaulus  was  preaching  a  sermon  on  the  subject 
"  What  I  would  do  with  a  million  dollars."  Mr.  Ar- 
mour was  present  and  he  listened  intently  as  the  clergy- 
man unfolded  his  vision  of  affording  technical  educa- 
tion to  boys  who  were  too  poor  to  attend  regular  techni- 
cal colleges  and  described  the  kind  of  an  institution  he 
would  build.  After  the  sermon,  Mr.  Armour  went  up 
to  Dr.  Gunsaulus  and  said :  "  If  you  will  give  your 
time  to  such  an  institution  as  you  have  outlined,  I  will 
give  you  the  money." 

Dr.  Gunsaulus  agreed  and  the  school  became  a  reality 
—  a  very  important  factor  in  the  field  of  technical  edu- 
cation. 

It  is  estimated  by  close  friends  of  Mr.  Armour  that 
he  gave  away  $5,000,000  in  small  unrecorded  amounts. 


12  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

It  was  a  habit  of  his  to  put  one  hundred  dollars  on  his 
desk  each  morning  and  on  his  trips  through  the  office 
and  plant  would  reward  zealous  employees  for  good 
pieces  of  work  or  for  some  sign  of  good  judgment.  He 
seldom  took  home  with  him  more  than  ten  dollars  at  the 
end  of  the  day's  work.  He  also  was  in  the  habit  of  giv- 
ing his  employees  suits  of  clothes  and  many  a  man  was 
sartorially  outfitted  by  Mr.  Armour  for  some  little  thing 
he  had  accomplished  in  a  creditable  manner. 

Mr.  Armour  knew  human  nature.  He  knew  what 
people  would  do  under  average  conditions.  He  knew 
what  the  rank  and  file  of  his  own  men  were  interested 
in. 

An  interesting  sidelight  on  one  of  his  donations  to 
a  worthy  cause  came  to  light  not  long  ago,  years  after 
his  death,  when  an  Armour  salesman  entered  a  little 
country  store.  The  storekeeper  gave  the  salesman  an 
order  and  never  asked  the  price  of  a  single  article. 
Naturally,  the  salesman  was  surprised  and  he  asked 
the  reason  for  this  action. 

"  Years  ago  when  I  was  a  young  railroad  engineer/' 
the  merchant  explained,  "  my  eyesight  troubled  me, 
and  one  night  I  missed  a  signal  and  ran  my  train  into 
an  open  switch,  just  missing  a  bad  wreck  by  the  will 
of  Providence.  Well,  Phil  Armour  was  on  that  train 
and  he  came  down  the  track  to  where  I  was  standing. 
Taking  the  lantern  from  my  hand  he  held  it  up  to  my 
face  and  I  could  see  his  eyes  searching  me  to  see  if  I 
was  sober  and  trustworthy  in  appearance.  Then,  say- 
ing nothing,  he  turned  and  walked  away.  A  few  days 
later  I  received  a  letter  from  him  advising  me  to  give 


PHILIP  DANFORTH  ABMOUE          13 

up  railroading  and  stating  he  was  enclosing  a  check 
for  $1,000  for  me  to  set  up  in  some  kind  of  business. 
That's  why  I  never  question  the  price  of  Armour 
products. " 

Mr.  Armour  often  declared  he  was  not  making  money 
just  to  have  it,  but  to  enable  him  to  help  others. 

"  You  know  it  gives  me  more  pleasure  to  give  away 
this  money  than  it  does  the  other  fellow  to  receive  it/' 
he  often  declared  to  his  secretary  when  the  latter  sug- 
gested the  advisability  of  investigating  some  of  the  ap- 
plicants for  charity.  This  is  demonstrated  by  a  study 
of  his  entire  career,  which  showed  him  always  planning, 
building,  devising  and  creating.  He  did  not  hoard 
money,  but  invested  it  again  so  it  would  set  more  men 
to  work.  During  his  lifetime  he  had  the  distinction  of 
employing  more  men  than  any  other  individual  in  the 
world. 

When  Mr.  Armour  died  in  1901  he  had  a  concern 
doing  a  business  of  $180,000,000  a  year.  In  1918  the 
company  did  a  business  of  $861,000,000  and  employed 
fifty-seven  thousand  three  hundred  and  three  men  in 
their  sixteen  plants  and  four  hundred  and  twenty-five 
branch  houses  throughout  various  parts  of  the  country. 
The  plant  he  established  in  Chicago  in  18YO  was  run 
with  a  small  thirty  horse-power  engine,  which,  inci- 
dentally, is  on  exhibition  in  the  largest  refrigeration 
plant  in  the  world  at  Armour  &  Company's  power  house 
in  the  Chicago  stockyards  to-day.  The  company  has 
five  thousand  four  hundred  and  thirty-three  refrigera- 
tor cars  hauling  the  finished  food  products  from  the 
plants  to  the  branch  houses  where  it  is  distributed  to 


PHIXEAS    TAYLOR    BAH X I'M 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

THE  WORLD'S  GREATEST  SHOWMAN 

THIS  versatile,  enterprising  genius,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  celebrities  that  ever  lived,  was  born  in 
Bethel,    Conn.,    on   July    5,    1810.     His   name, 
Phineas  Taylor,  came  from  his  maternal  grandfather,  a 
great  wag,  who  at  his  christening  gave  his  mother  a 
gift-deed,   in  his  behalf,  to  five  acres  of  land,   "  Ivy 
Island  " —  of  which  more  hereafter. 

His  father,  Philo  Barnum,  son  of  Ephraim,  a  captain 
in  the  Revolutionary  War,  was  a  tailor,  farmer,  and 
sometime  tavern-keeper. 

The  boy  Phineas,  like  most  farmers'  boys,  drove  cows 
to  and  from  the  pasture,  shelled  corn,  weeded  the  gar- 
den, and,  when  bigger,  rode  horses  for  plowing,  turned 
and  raked  hay,  finally  handling  the  shovel  and  hoe. 

Phineas  was  six  when  he  started  to  go  to  school,  and 
he  proved  an  apt  student.  He  was  especially  good  at 
arithmetic,  and  was  once  called  out  of  bed  one  night 
by  his  teacher  who  had  laid  a  bet  that  the  boy  could 
calculate  the  correct  number  of  feet  in  a  load  of  wood 
in  five  minutes.  He  did  the  sum  in  less  than  two! 

His  business  instinct  early  developed,  and  by  the 
time  he  was  six  he  had  saved  enough  pennies  to  ex- 
change for  a  silver  dollar,  the  possession  of  which,  Mr. 
Barnum  once  said,  "made  me  feel  far  richer  than  I 
have  ever  since  felt  in  the  world." 

17 


18  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

As  Phineas  grew  older  his  capital  increased,  for  he 
earned  ten  cents  a  day  riding  the  horse  that  led  the  ox- 
team  in  plowing,  and  on  holidays,  instead  of  spending 
his  money  at  fairs  and  exhibitions,  he  earned  quite  a 
lot  by  peddling  molasses  candy,  gingerbread,  cookies, 
and  cherry  rum.  By  the  time  he  was  twelve,  besides 
other  property,  he  owned  a  sheep  and  a  calf,  and  would 
soon  have  been  a  small  Rockefeller  if  his  father,  as  he 
humorously  relates,  had  not  "kindly  permitted  me  to 
purchase  my  own  clothing." 

About  this  time  came  a  great  event  in  his  life.  It 
was  January,  1822,  when  Daniel  Brown  put  up  at 
his  father's  tavern  with  some  fat  cattle  he  was  driving 
to  New  York,  and  mentioned  during  supper,  in  the 
boy's  hearing,  that  he  needed  a  boy  to  help  him. 

Phineas  burned  to  see  the  metropolis,  and  besought 
his  father  and  got  his  consent  to  go.  So  next  morning 
at  daylight  in  a  heavy  snowstorm  he  started  on  foot 
with  the  cattle.  After  spraining  his  ankle  while  chas- 
ing a  stray  ox,  a  misadventure  he  was  afraid  to  tell 
about  for  fear  of  being  sent  back,  he  reached  New  York 
after  four  days. 

On  leaving  home  his  mother  had  given  him  "  one 
dollar,"  which  she  thought  would  satisfy  his  every 
need.  But  after  buying  some  oranges  at  six  cents 
apiece,  a  knife,  some  candy,  a  gun  that  would  "  go  off  " 
and  some  torpedoes  he  was  about  broke. 

Getting  back  to  the  Bull's  Head  Tavern,  where  he 
and  Farmer  Brown  had  put  up,  his  first  prank  was  to 
hit  the  barkeeper  with  an  arrow  from  his  "  gun,"  for 
which  he  got  a  sound  box  on  the  ears ;  then  he  exploded 


P.  T.  BARNUM  19 

some  of  his  torpedoes  in  the  dining-room,  the  guests 
flying  in  terror  in  every  direction.  Whereupon  the 
landlord  floored  him  with  a  blow,  exclaiming : 

"  There,  you  little  greenhorn  —  that'll  teach  you  bet- 
ter than  to  explode  your  infernal  firecrackers  in  my 
house  again !  " 

Meanwhile  Phineas  had  eaten  his  candy,  and  thought 
it  the  finest  thing  he'd  ever  tasted.  So  back  to  the 
toy-shop  he  went,  and,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  he 
finally  exchanged  all  his  purchases,  including  some 
of  his  clothes,  for  candy,  devouring  it  as  fast  as  he 
got  it. 

On  his  return  home,  after  the  cattle  had  been  sold, 
he  was  soundly  whipped.  So  ended  ingloriously  his 
first  visit  to  New  York. 

It  was  now  decided  to  let  him  visit  his  wonderful  es- 
tate "  Ivy  Island,"  about  which  he  was  always  hearing. 
He  had  heard  himself  called  the  "  richest  child  in 
town,"  the  fear  expressed  that  he  would  be  "  stuck  up  " 
after  inheriting  so  rich  a  property,  and  even  his  father 
and  mother  hoped  he  would  "  do  something  for  the 
family  "  when  he  reached  his  majority  and  came  into 
his  estate.  And  his  grandfather  took  care  to  remind 
him  that  he  was  indebted  to  him  for  his  wealth  because 
he  had  been  named  Phineas  after  him.  As  he  started 
on  his  expedition,  tremendously  hopeful  and  eager,  with 
beating  heart,  his  mother  said: 

(e  Now,  Taylor,  don't  become  so  excited  when  you 
see  your  property  as  to  let  your  joy  make  you  sick,  for 
remember,  rich  as  you  are,  that  it  will  be  eleven  years 
before  you  can  come  into  possession  of  your  fortune." 


20  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

The  hired  man,  Edmund,  ax  on  shoulder,  went 
along  as  guide.  Crossing  a  meadow,  they  reached  some 
swamp-lands. 

"  We  were  obliged,"  as  Mr.  Barnum  relates,  "  to 
leap  from  bog  to  bog.  ...  I  was  up  to  my  middle  in 
water  and  a  swarm  of  hornets  attacked  me  .  .  .  after 
floundering  through  the  morass  I  arrived  half-drowned, 
hornet-stung,  mud-covered,  on  dry  land,  and  then 
reached  the  margin  of  a  stream.  I  now  discovered  the 
use  of  Edmund's  ax,  for  he  felled  a  small  oak  to  make 
a  bridge.  Crossing,  I  proceeded  to  the  center  of  my 
domain.  I  saw  nothing  but  a  few  stunted  ivies  and 
straggling  trees. 

"  The  truth  flashed  upon  me.  I  had  been  the  laugh- 
ing-stock of  the  family  and  neighborhood  for  years.  .  .  . 
Just  then  a  huge  black  snake  (one  of  my  tenants)  ap- 
proached me  with  upraised  head.  I  gave  one  shriek 
and  rushed  for  the  bridge.  This  was  my  first  and  last 
visit  to  '  Ivy  Island ' !  " 

As  Phineas  grew  older  his  dislike  for  farm  and  other 
manual  labor  increased.  This  was  set  down  to  laziness, 
and,  despairing  of  him,  his  father  resolved  to  make  a 
merchant  out  of  him.  So  he  erected  a  building  in 
Bethel,  and,  with  Hiram  Weed  as  partner,  started  a 
general  store,  installing  Phineas  as  clerk  on  a  small  sal- 
ary out  of  which  the  boy  had  to  clothe  himself. 

He  soon  developed  into  a  shrewd,  sharp  trader,  get- 
ting a  world  of  experience  and  knowledge  of  human 
nature  as  a  result  of  his  dealings  with  many  diverse 
characters. 

Young  Phineas  was  well  brought  up,  so  was  a  con- 


P.  T.  BAENUM  21 

stant  church  and  Bible-class  attendant.  In  those  days 
churches  were  not  heated,  and  in  severe  winters  it  was 
no  small  hardship  to  sit  several  hours  in  a  freezing 
meeting-house.  It  would  have  been  considered  impious 
—  sacrilegious  —  to  put  a  stove  in  one.  The  youth 
nevertheless  liked  church-going  and  especially  the  Bible 
class,  in  which  he  soon  distinguished  himself  through 
his  excellent  knowledge  and  comprehension  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. 

In  1825,  when  the  boy  was  only  fifteen,  his  father 
died  at  the  age  of  forty-eight,  leaving  his  mother  with 
five  children  and  an  insolvent  estate.  So  straitened  was 
the  family  that  Phineas  had  to  get  trusted  for  the  pair 
of  boots  he  wore  to  his  father's  funeral.  His  mother 
later  on,  however,  by  hard  work  and  great  economy,  suc- 
ceeded in  redeeming  the  homestead. 

Meanwhile  Phineas  got  a  position  at  $6.00  a  month 
and  board,  and,  gaining  the  confidence  of  his  employers, 
who  gave  him  opportunities  of  doing  so,  he  soon  began 
to  make  money  on  his  own  account,  for  he  was  a  born 
trader  and  fond  of  anything  speculative. 

The  next  fall  found  him  in  Brooklyn,  clerking  for 
Oliver  Taylor,  formerly  of  Danbury,  where  in  time  he 
was  entrusted  with  all  the  buying,  scouring  ~New  York 
City  in  search  of  bargains.  But  he  was  not  satisfied 
with  a  mere  salary.  He  had  a  speculative  genius  and 
was  not  content  if  he  could  not  increase  his  earnings  by 
energy,  perseverance,  diligence  in  business,  tact  and 
"  calculation." 

In  the  summer  of  1827  he  caught  smallpox  and  after- 
wards went  home  to  recuperate.  Returning  to  Brook- 


22  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

lyn,  he  gave  Mr.  Taylor  notice,  and  opened  a  porter- 
house (saloon)  on  his  own  account.  But  he  was  not  in 
business  for  himself  long,  for,  getting  a  good  offer,  he 
sold  out  at  a  handsome  profit,  and  then  became  a  clerk 
in  a  similar  concern  kept  by  David  Thorp,  29  Peck  Slip, 
New  York.  He  lived  with  the  family,  was  kindly 
treated,  and  developed  a  strong  taste  for  the  drama. 
Though  he  sold  liquors  to  others,  he  didn't  indulge  him- 
self. Furthermore  he  daily  read  his  Bible  and  attended 
church  regularly.  His  habits  were  good  in  early  youth. 

Returning  home  to  Bethel  in  1828  he  opened  a  retail 
fruit  and  confectionery  store  in  a  part  of  his  grand- 
father's carriage  house  w'hich  had  been  offered  him 
rent  free  if  he  came  home. 

This  was,  Mr.  Barnum  once  said,  "  an  eventful  era  in 
my  life.  My  total  capital  was  $125,  fifty  of  which  I 
had  spent  in  fitting  up  the  store,  seventy  in  stock  in 
trade.  .  .  .  The  novelty  of  my  little  shop  attracted  at- 
tention. I  was  obliged  to  call  in  one  of  my  old  school- 
mates to  assist.  When  I  closed  at  night  I  had  the  sat- 
isfaction of  reckoning  up  $63  as  my  day's  receipts,  yet 
my  stock  was  not  seriously  diminished,  showing  that 
my  profits  had  been  large." 

Later,  on  the  advice  of  his  grandfather,  he  sold  lot- 
tery tickets  on  a  commission  of  ten  per  cent.,  and  this 
business,  together  with  his  store,  netted  him  a  most 
satisfactory  profit. 

During  this  season  the  young  trader  extended  his 
lottery  business,  opening  agencies  throughout  Connecti- 
cut. 

In  1829,  he  married  Charity  Hallett,  of  Bethel,  a 


P.  T.  BARNUM  23 

young  tailoress  he  had  greatly  admired  for  several 
years. 

During  a  period  of  great  political  excitement,  some 
articles  he  had  written  were  rejected  by  a  Connecticut 
paper  he  had  offered  them  to,  so  he  at  once  bought  a 
press  and  types  and  on  October  19,  1831,  issued  in 
D  anbury  the  first  number  of  his  own  papdr,  The  Herald 
of  Freedom. 

The  boldness  and  originality  of  its  editing  gave  it  a 
large  circulation,  but  its  young  owner  and  editor  lacked 
experience  in  journalism,  and  before  long,  in  one  of 
several  libel  suits  brought  against  him,  he  was  con- 
victed, fined,  and  jailed  for  sixty  days. 

Feeling  ran  high  and  he  had  everybody's  sympathy. 
So  he  was  made  very  comfortable  while  in  jail.  A 
room  was  papered  and  carpeted  for  him,  he  lived  well, 
and  was  kept  busy  receiving  an  endless  stream  of  visit- 
ing friends.  He  issued  his  paper,  as  usual,  and  it 
prospered  more  than  ever.  The  day  he  was  released 
he  received  a  great  ovation,  going  home  in  a  coach  and 
six  with  a  band,  and  there  were  processions,  speeches, 
odes,  and  salvos  of  cannon.  Upon  arrival  in  Bethel 
amid  general  rejoicings,  the  band  struck  up  "  Home, 
Sweet  Home." 

In  1836  Barnum  sold  his  paper,  and  drifted  to  New 
York,  where  he  tried  in  vain  to  enter  mercantile  life 
on  a  partnership  basis.  His  money  running  low  he 
at  last  started  a  boarding-house  at  No.  52  Frankfort 
Street. 

In  spite  of  all  his  cares,  anxieties  and  struggles  his 
jocose  moods  predominated.  He  loved  fun,  practical 


24  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OP  INDUSTRY 

fun,  for  itself  -and  for  the  enjoyment  it  brought.  He 
was  quick-witted  and  invariably  able  to  turn  the  ta- 
bles on  inveterate  jokers,  especially  the  kind  that  picked 
up  money  by  laying  "  catch  "  bets-. 

About  now  the  fortunes  of  Mr.  Barnum  and  his  young 
wife  were  anything  but  bright,  and  it  was  clear  to  his 
mind  that  he  had  not  yet  found  his  proper  vocation. 
He  had  not  yet  discovered  that  he  was  to  cater  to  an 
insatiate  human  want  —  the  love  of  amusement ;  that 
fame  and  fortune  awaited  him  on  two  continents  as  soon 
as  he  should  appear  before  the  public  in  the  character 
of  showman. 

It  was  not  until  1835,  however,  that  Phineas  T. 
Barnum  found  his  true  vocation,  beginning  in  this  year 
his  long,  vicissitudinous  career  as  showman. 

His  first  acquisition  was  "  one  of  the  greatest  cu- 
riosities ever  witnessed,  viz. :  JOICE  HETH,  a  negress, 
aged  161  years,  who  formerly  belonged  to  the  father 
of  General  Washington."  It  was  also  claimed,  by  the 
man  who  was  then  exhibiting  her  in  Philadelphia  and 
from  whom  Barnum  bought  her,  that  she  had  been 
George  Washington's  nurse. 

At  the  outset  of  his  new  career  as  showman,  he  real- 
ized that  everything  depended  upon  getting  people  to 
think,  talk,  become  curious  and  excited  about  the  "  re- 
markable curiosity.'7  So  posters,  transparencies,  adver- 
tisements, newspaper  paragraphs  were  used  regardless 
of  expense,  and  in  all  the  cities  in  which  he  exhibited 
Joice  Heth  his  rooms  were  crowded.  She  died  the  fol- 
lowing year. 

By  now  Mr.  Barnum  was  sure  of  his  ground  —  sure 


P.  T.  BAENUM  25 

that  he  had  at  last  found  his  destined  occupation  in 
life,  and  his  next  exhibit  was  the  "  eminent  Italian 
artist/'  Signor  Vivalla,  as  he  re-christened  him,  an  acro- 
bat whom  he  engaged  for  one  year  at  $12  a  week.  He 
cleared  about  $150  a  week  on  him  in  several  cities, 
but  in  Washington  went  broke  and  had  to  pawn  his 
watch  to  get  back  to  Philadelphia.  While  at  the  Capi- 
tal he  saw  such  famous  statesmen  as  Clay,  Calhoun, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  Polk,  etc. 

Dull  times  in  Philadelphia  and  small  audiences  had 
the  effect  of  stimulating  Mr.  Barnum's  wits  and  devel- 
oping in  him  the  art  or  instinct  of  exciting  the  pub- 
lic's curiosity,  which  he  realized  more  than  ever  was 
essential  to  success  in  his  business.  So,  as  he  had  just 
discovered  a  circus-performer  —  a  balancer  and  juggler 
—  named  Roberts,  the  idea  came  to  him  of  concocting 
a  challenge  —  with  the  stakes  at  $1,000  —  from  Roberts 
to  Vivalla.  It  was  of  course  accepted,  and  the  great 
"  trial  of  skill "  was  extensively  advertised,  arousing 
the  public  to  fever  heat  Needless  to  say  the  house 
was  jammed  on  the  first  night,  and  the  "  contests " 
were  continued  indefinitely  at  much  profit  to  Barnum. 

Traveling  about  the  country  the  young  showman  had 
endless  adventures.  Once  he  was  chased  through  a 
town,  caught,  and  nearly  lynched.  It  turned  out  that 
his  partner  had  pointed  Barnum  out,  as  he  was  leaving 
the  hotel,  as  the  "  Rev.  E.  3L  Avery,  the  murderer  of 
Miss  Cornell."  This  started  a  mob  after  him,  all  his 
assertions  that  he  was  not  Avery  were  useless,  and  at 
last  he  was  marched  back  to  the  hotel  like  a  malefactor, 
his  clothes  in  rags,  a  vast  crowd  following.  Here,  of 


26  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

course,  his  partner,  exploding  with  laughter,  identified 
him  and  he  was  released. 

On  Barnum  bitterly  upbraiding  him  for  his  trick, 
he  replied : 

"  My  de'ar  Barn-urn,  it  was  all  for  our  good.  Re- 
member, all  we  need  to-  insure  success  is  notoriety." 

And  so  it  fell  out.  The  pair  had  crowded  houses,  for 
everybody  was  curious  to  see  the  two  showmen  who 
played  such  extensive  practical  jokes  on  each  other. 

It  was  a  nomadic,  adventurous  life  that  Barnum  led 
at  this  period  of  his  extraordinary  career,  visiting,  with 
his  traveling  show,  remote  points,  and  undergoing  all 
sorts  of  hardships  and  dangers.  One  day  he  was 
"  broke,"  the  next  flush.  It  w«as  at  best  a  hand-to- 
mouth  existence,  and  he  was  still  at  the  foot  of  the  lad- 
der when,  through  clever  diplomacy  on  his  part,  based 
on  almost  uncanny  shrewdness,  he  managed  to  get  pos- 
session of  the  American  Museum,  on  Broadway,  New 
York. 

Prom  the  moment  Barnum  became  proprietor  and 
manager  of  the  American  Museum  there  began  a  new 
epoch  in  his  career,  which  thereafter  was  one  of  bril- 
liant success,  accompanied  by  occasional  setbacks.  It 
was,  he  once  said,  "  the  ladder  by  which  I  rose  to  for- 
tune," for  he  made  it  the  most  popular  place  of  amuse- 
ment in  the  world.  The  public's  curiosity  as  to  giants, 
dwarfs,  mermaids,  Indians,  elephants,  etc.,  was  insatia- 
ble, and  so  much  money  rolled  in  as  to  embarrass  him. 

In  1842  Barnum  discovered  at  Bridgeport,  Conn., 
the  remarkably  small  child,  not  two  feet  high,  which  he 
later  exhibited  with  tremendous  success  throughout  the 


P.  T.  BAENUM  27 

world  as  "  General  Tom  Thumb."  This  was  one  of  his 
biggest  catches  in  the  curiosity  line.  The  midget's 
visit  to  the  English  Queen  at  Buckingham  Palace  caused 
the  royal  family  much  amusement. 

"  Good  evening,  ladies  and  gentlemen !  "  the  "  Gen- 
eral "  exclaimed  as  he  entered  the  royal  presence.  A 
burst  of  laughter  followed  the  salutation,  and  the  Queen 
took  him  by  the  hand,  led  him  about  the  galleries,  ask- 
ing many  questions.  Finally  the  General  familiarly 
told  the  Queen  her  picture  gallery  was  "  first-rate," 
and  added  that  he'd  "  like  to  see  the  Prince  of  Wales." 

On  a  second  visit,  the  Queen,  after  inquiring  as  to 
his  health,  and  receiving  the  reply  that  he  was  "  first- 
rate,"  said :  "  General,  this  is  the  Prince  of  Wales." 

"  How  are  you,  Prince  ?  "  said  the  General,  with 
great  cordiality,  shaking  hands  heartily.  Then  stand- 
ing beside  the  Prince  he  remarked :  "  The  Prince  is 
taller  than  I  am,  but  I  feel  as  big  as  anybody !  "  upon 
which  he  strutted  up  and  down  as  proud  as  a  peacock, 
amid  roars  of  laughter. 

As  a  result  of  Koyal  patronage  Tom  Thumb  was  all 
the  rage  in  England,  and  the  little  fellow's  wages  were 
raised  from  $3  a  week  to  $25,  then  to  $50,  when  Barnum 
made  a  new  arrangement  with  the  "  General's  "  father 
by  which  they  became  equal  partners. 

When  Tom  Thumb  visited  the  Queen  Dowager  Ade- 
laide he  wore  a  gorgeous  court  costume. 

"  Why,  General,"  said  the  Queen  Dowager,  "  I  think 
you  look  very  smart  to-day." 

"  I  guess  I  do,"  piped  the  General  complacently. 

The  Queen,  laughing,  took  him  upon  her  lap  —  his 


28  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

dignity  suffering  no  damage  seemingly  —  and  presented 
him  with  a  beautiful  gold  watch. 

In  France  the  General  traveled  in  a  diminutive  coach 
and  four,  receiving  royal  honors. 

Mr.  Barnum  next  achieved  a  tremendous  triumph  in 
the  role  of  impresario,  introducing  to  the  American  pub- 
lic the  noted  Swedish  songstress,  Jenny  Lind.  To 
bring  this  about  he  had  to  deposit  with  the  vocalist's 
bankers  the  prodigious  sum  (for  those  days)  of  $187,- 
500.  It  took  some  hustling  to  raise  this  amount  of 
cash  in  the  required  time,  and  he  was  $5,000  short,  when 
his  old  Philadelphia  friend,  the  Kev.  Abel  C.  Thomas, 
to  his  inexpressible  joy  and  thankfulness,  placed  that 
amount  in  his  hands. 

The  Swedish  nightingale  arrived  in  New  York,  Sep- 
tember 1,  1850,  on  the  paddle-wheel  steamship  Atlantic, 
and  received  a  wildly  enthusiastic  reception.  There 
were  decorations,  bands,  receptions,  and  at  midnight  of 
that  day  the  ginger  was  serenaded  by  two  hundred  mu- 
sicians who  were  escorted  to  her  hotel,  the  Irving  House, 
by  three  hundred  firemen  with  flaming  torches.  The 
excitement  lasted  for  weeks,  her  concert  tour  proving  an 
astounding  success. 

To  Mr.  Barnum's  credit,  be  it  said,  when  he  saw 
that  Jenny  Lind's  engagement  was  going  to  be  success- 
ful beyond  their  expectations,  he  voluntarily  made  a 
change  in  the  contract  so  greatly  to  her  advantage  that 
her  own  receipts  were  doubled. 

Miss  Lind  was  greatly  astonished,  and  grasping  his 
hand,  said: 

"  Mr.  Barnum,  you  are  a  gentleman  of  honor.  .  .  . 


P.  T.  BARNUM  29 

I  will  sing  for  you  as  long  as  you  please ;  I  will  sing  for 
you  in  America  —  in  Europe  —  anywhere !  " 

And  one  of  the  first  things  she  did  was  to  devote  the 
whole  proceeds  of  one  concert  —  $10,000  —  to  charity. 

Single  tickets  to  hear  her  sold  at  auction  as  high  as 
$625! 

The  campaign  closed  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  Jenny  Lind 
receiving  for  ninety-five  concerts  some  $176,675,  and 
Barnum's  gross  receipts  after  paying  the  singer  were 
$535,486. 

In  1851  Mr.  Barnum  became  part  owner  of  the 
steamship  North  America,  afterwards  partly  owned  by 
Commodore  Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  upon  whom  Barnum 
called  one  day. 

"  Is  it  possible  you  are  Barnum !  "  exclaimed  the 
Commodore,  in  surprise.  "  Why,  I  expected  to  see  a 
monster,  part  lion,  part  elephant,  and  a  mixture  of 
rhinoceros  and  tiger !  " 

In  1855  the  redoubtable  showman  was  dashed  to 
ruin  in  the  crash  of  the  Jerome  Clock  Company  to  which 
he  had,  in  good  faith,  loaned  very  large  sums. 

He  met  his  reverses  with  fortitude  and  calm  confi- 
dence. Although  fairly  deluged  with  sympathy  and 
bona-fide  offers  of  help,  even  the  little  General  offering 
to  appear  in  a  benefit,  he  declined  all  offers,  and  at  the 
age  of  forty-six  found  himself  once  more  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  ladder.  Living  frugally  in  hired  rooms  on 
Eighth  Street  in  New  York,  he  fought  as  best  he  could 
a  hounding  and  persecution  set  afoot  by  creditors. 

About  this  time  a  new  and  novel  friend  came  to  Mr. 
Barnum's  assistance  —  a  huge  black  whale  that  came 


30  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

ashore  close  to  the  farm  on  Long  Island  where  he  was 
spending  the  summer. 

Mr.  Barnum  promptly  bought  the  monster  for  a  few 
dollars,  and  sent  it  to  the  Museum  (which  he  had  sold 
before  his  failure,  intending  to  retire),  where  it  was  ex- 
hibited in  a  refrigerator,  netting  him  enough,  as  his 
share  of  the  profits,  to  pay  his  board  bill  for  his  whole 
family  for  the  entire  season. 

Then,  accepting  a  loan  of  $5,000  from  Mr.  Wheeler, 
the  sewing-machine  man,  with  General  Tom  Thumb 
and  others  he  set  sail  for  England,  returning  in  1857 
to  New  York,  after  a  successful  tour. 

Now  came  some  bad  luck,  for  he  lost  by  fire  his 
magnificent  residence,  Iranistan,  at  Bridgeport,  the  only 
example  of  oriental  architecture  in  the  country. 

After  another  visit  to  England  where  he  lectured  with 
great  success  on  "  The  Art  of  Money-Getting,"  Mr. 
Barnum  returned  in  1859  to  the  United  States. 

Some  of  Mr.  Barnum' s  "  art  of  money-getting  "  max- 
ims are: 

True  economy  consists  in  always  making  the  income 
exceed  the  outgo. 

The  foundation  of  success  in  life  is  good  health. 

Don't  mistake  your  vocation. 

Persevere. 

Whatever  you  do,  do  it  with  all  your  might. 

Use  the  best  tools. 

Don't  get  above  your  business. 

There  is  no  royal  road  to  wealth. 

Learn  something  useful. 

Be  systematic. 


P.  T.  BAENUM  31 

Read  the  newspapers. 

Beware  of  "  outside  operations." 

Be  charitable. 

Keep  your  business  affairs  to  yourself. 

Preserve  your  integrity. 

When  this  lecture  idea  was  suggested  to  Mr.  Barnum 
by  some  of  his  American  friends  in  London,  he  told 
them  that  considering  his  clock  complications  he  thought 
he  was  more  competent  to  speak  on  "  The  Art  of  Money 
Losing  " ;  but  they  encouraged  him  by  reminding  him 
that  he  could  not  have  lost  money  if  he  had  not  pre- 
viously possessed  the  faculty  of  making  it. 

Soon  after  returning  home,  in  fact  by  March,  1860, 
Barnum  was  "  on  his  feet  again  "  and  once  more  the 
owner  of  The  American  Museum,  which  soon  began  to 
teem  with  newer  and  more  interesting  curiosities  than 
ever,  including  live  white  whales. 

To  keep  these  whales  in  their  native  briny,  he  tapped 
!N~cw  York  Bay  bringing  salt  water  into  his  museum 
basement  and  tank  by  pumping.  The  whales  were 
caught  alive  in  traps  by  various  expeditions  that  Mr. 
Barnum  sent  out,  and  he  soon  added  to  his  list  of  at- 
tractions an  aquarium,  the  first  in  the  country,  also 
bringing  the  first  "  hippo  "  to  America. 

Mr.  Barnum  next  ran  across  two  more  dwarfs,  Com- 
modore Nutt  and  Miss  Lavinia  Warren,  the  latter  of 
whom  later  on  married  General  Tom  Thumb. 

Mr.  Barnum  was  a  Jackson  Democrat  until  secession 
threatened,  when  he  allied  himself  to  the  Republicans, 
by  which  party,  in  1865,  he  was  nominated  for  the  Con- 
necticut legislature  and  elected. 


32  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

In  July  of  that  year  he  sustained  a  heavy  loss  by  the 
burning  of  his  Museum.  By  November,  however,  he 
opened  "  Barnum' s  New  American  Museum "  higher 
up  Broadway,  at  Nos.  535,  537,  and  539,  with  a  fresh 
stock  of  curiosities  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 

In  1860  Mr.  Barnum  was  again  elected  to  the  legis- 
lature, and  in  1867  was  nominated  for  Congress,  but  de- 
feated. 

Mr.  Barnum  had  had  a  twenty-five  year  lease  on  his 
old  Museum  property,  and  now  succeeded  in  selling  it 
for  $200,000  to  James  Gordon  Bennett,  founder  and 
editor  of  the  New  York  Herald,  whose  paper  thereafter 
for  many  years  was  published  on  the  site  of  the  old 
Museum,  Broadway  and  Ann  Street. 

He  then  made  a  successful  lecture  tour  of  the  coun- 
try, on  one  occasion  riding  on  the  locomotive  of  a 
freight  train,  for  he  believed  in  keeping  engagements. 

In  1868  the  New  Museum,  with  a  priceless  zoological 
collection,  was  utterly  destroyed  by  fire  with  a  loss  of  a 
million  dollars,  and  for  awhile  Mr.  Barnum  retired  from 
business. 

But  the  energies  peculiar  to  his  nature  couldn't  be 
chained  down,  and,  after  a  pleasure  trip  round  the  coun- 
try including  the  Yosemite,  in  1870  he  organized  his 
world-famed  circus,  a  show  still  in  existence  though 
merged  with  others.  He  so  augmented  the  show,  after 
a  brilliant  initial  success,  that  the  expense  of  moving  it 
about  the  country  rose  to  $5,000  a  day ! 

In  December  his  great  circus  caught  fire  and  every- 
thing was  destroyed  except  two  elephants  and  one  camel 
—  a  loss  amounting  to  some  $300,000. 


P.  T.  BABNUM  33 

Nothing  daunted,  Mr.  Barnum,  with  his  usual  forti- 
tude, irrepressible  energy  and  indomitable  courage  at 
once  cabled  his  European  agents  to  "  buy  another  mil- 
lion dollars'  worth  of  animals !  "  By  April,  1873,  he 
had  brought  together  still  another  "  colossal  aggrega- 
tion.'7 

Upon  his  return  to  America,  after  ransacking  Eu- 
rope and  spending  large  sums  for  additional  rare  ani- 
mals, the  citizens  of  Bridgeport  gave  Mr.  Barnum  a 
public  dinner  "  as  a  mark  of  our  esteem  and  of  your 
liberality  and  energy  in  private  enterprise  and  in  pro- 
moting the  industries  and  improvements  of  our  city." 
In  1875  he  was  elected  Mayor  of  Bridgeport. 

About  this  time  Mr.  Barnum  entertained  King  Kala- 
kau,  of  the  Sandwich  (Hawaiian)  Islands,  at  his  cir- 
cus, now  grown  so  large  that  when  he  decided  to  "  show  " 
in  Boston  for  three  weeks,  the  cost  of  removal  and  of 
the  immense  canvas  tents  was  $50,000 ! 

In  1878  he  was  elected  for  the  fourth  time  to  the 
General  Assembly  of  Connecticut. 

By  1880  Mr.  Barnum  had  added  to  his  show  many 
notable  features,  including  Admiral  Dot,  Woolly  Horse, 
the  What  Is  It,  the  firing  of  Zazel  from  a  cannon,  the 
tattooed  Greek,  etc. 

In  1882  he  combined  his  circus  with  Bailey's  and 
bought  for  $10,000  the  monster  elephant  Jumbo  from 
the  Royal  Zoological  Gardens,  London.  After  arrival 
in  New  York  with  his  prize  his  receipts  for  three  weeks 
totaled  $30,000 !  Such  was  the  sensational  interest  the 
arrival  in  America  of  this  huge  beast  of  the  jungle 
aroused !  Then  he  entertained  the  public  with  still  an- 


34  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

other  curiosity  —  The  Sacred  White  Elephant  of  Siam. 

Marvelous  was  the  career  of  Phineas  T.  Barnum  as 
showman,  and  great  was  his  celebrity.  President 
Ulysses  S.  Grant  once  told  him  that  his  name  was  bet- 
ter known  throughout  the  world  than  his  —  that  every- 
where he  traveled  he  was  asked  "  How  is  Barnum  ?  " 

Before  he  died  he  presented  his  native  town  with  a 
magnificent  bronze  fountain,  and,  in  fact,  was  always 
very  liberal  and  public-spirited.  He  was  a  most  enter- 
taining writer,  and,  among  many  other  things,  wrote  a 
book  for  boys  called  "  Lion  Jack,"  another  on  "  The 
Humbugs  of  the  World/7  and  his  famous  autobiography, 
of  which  there  have  been  sold  millions  of  copies. 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

IMMORTAL  TELEPHONE  INVENTOR,  AND 
HUMANITARIAN 


Copyright  by  Harris  &  Ewing  Co.,  Washington,  D.  C. 
ALEXANDER    GRAHAM    BELL 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

IMMOETAL  TELEPHONE  INVENTOR,  AND 
HUMANITARIAN 

*  *  V  ^m  IG-A-JIG,  and  away  we  go,"  was  one  of  the 
r^    very  first  messages  sent  over  the  telephone. 
Dr.  Bell  (in  1877)  was  lecturing  upon  and 
exhibiting  his  just   invented  telephone  and  naturally 
expected  the  distinguished  Boston  lawyer  he  had  in- 
vited to  speak  into  his  apparatus  to  utter,  perhaps,  some 
immortal  phrase,  but  the  above  absurd  line  was  all  the 
legal  gentleman  could  think  of  on  the  spur  of  the  mo- 
ment. 

Alexander  Graham  Bell,  now  deceased,  was  a  son 
of  Alexander  Melville  Bell,  a  noted  Scotch- American 
educator  and  inventor.  Born  at  Edinburgh,  Scotland, 
on  March  3,  1847,  Alexander  attended  the  Royal  High 
School,  and,  as  a  boy,  displayed  inventive  ability  by 
designing  a  rotating  contrivance  for  husking  wheat. 
The  idea  came  to  him  while  doing  some  work  for  a 
miller  who  had  commandeered  his  services.  The  boy, 
it  is  related,  was  playing  around  a  grist  mill,  not  far 
from  home,  when  the  miller  spied  him.  Canny  Scot 
as  he  was,  he  hated  to  see  "  idle  hands,"  so  he  roughly 
ordered  the  boy  to  get  to  work  removing  husks  from 
wheat.  The  boy,  somewhat  amusedly,  started  in,  but, 
like  the  boy  McCormick,  in  Virginia,  soon  rebelled 
against  such  a  slow,  toilsome  job.  He  decided  he  could 

37 


38  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

could  do  the  work  better  with  a  nail-brush,  and  he  did 
indeed  get  better  results.  At  last  he  conceived  the 
idea  of  husking  wheat  by  machinery,  and  this  idea,  too, 
proved  successful. 

He  was  a  precocious  boy,  educated  above  his  years, 
and  with  an  original,  inventive  turn  of  mind,  which 
bent  its  ceaseless  activities  in  every  direction.  Form- 
ing his  boy  playmates  into  a  society  for  the  "  Promo- 
tion of  Fine  Arts  Among  Boys,"  with  himself  as  pro- 
fessor of  Anatomy,  he  would  lecture  his  boy-classes 
in  his  father's  attic,  using  small  animal  skeletons  his 
father  helped  him  to  secure.  One  lucky  day  he  found 
a  dead  suckling  pig,  and  tremendous  was  the  excite- 
ment of  the  Society,  when  the  boy  professor  announced 
his  lecture.  There  was,  needless  to  say,  a  full  attend- 
ance. 

The  youthful  professor  soon  got  warmed  up  over  his 
porky  subject,  but  when  the  time  came  to  illustrate  his 
argument  by  dissection,  on  sticking  his  knife  into  the 
corpus,  imagine  the  horror  and  terror  of  the  boy-pro- 
fessor and  his  class,  when  the  pig  emitted  several  ghostly 
grunts,  as  the  gas  and  air  escaped.  All,  including  the 
learned  lecturer,  fled  in  consternation. 

After  leaving  the  High  School,  Alexander  entered 
Edinburgh  University,  also  receiving  special  training 
in  his  distinguished  father's  system  for  curing  impedi- 
ments of  speech.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  priceless 
knowledge  of  the  human  voice,  of  sound  and  of  vibra- 
tion, thus  imparted  to  him  by  his  father  —  what  a  dif- 
ferent career  might  have  been  Alexander  Graham 
Bell's! 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL         39 

In  1867  he  entered  the  University  of  London,  and 
then  in  1870  his  father,  alarmed  at  the  death  of  two 
of  his  sons  from  consumption,  took  Alexander  to  On- 
tario, Canada,  where  the  family  settled. 

Two  years  later  Alexander  crossed  the  border  and 
settled  in  the  United  States,  where  he  introduced  with 
great  success  his  father's  system  of  deaf-mute  instruc- 
tion, becoming  professor  of  vocal  physiology  in  Boston 
University.  While  devoting  himself  here  to  the  science 
of  speech,  young  Bell  became  interested  in  multiple 
telegraphy  and  it  was  while  experimenting  with  a  mul- 
tiple-telegraph apparatus  that  the  germ  of  the  tele- 
phone invention  was  implanted  in  his  mind,  for  he  dis- 
covered that  telegraph  wires  would  transmit  sound ! 
He  later  on  consulted  a  leading  electrical  authority  at 
Washington,  telling  him  his  idea,  and  also  that  he 
hadn't  sufficient  electrical  knowledge  to  perfect  it. 
"  Get  it !  "  was  the  learned  man's  only  reply. 

Young  Bell,  luckily,  knew  all  about  sound  and  vibra- 
tions, and  this  of  course  gave  him  a  tremendous  advan- 
tage in  working  out  his  wonderful  idea.  He  at  once 
started  to  find  out  by  experiment  all  he  could  about 
electricity,  and  while  hunting  a  mechanician  to  make  his 
instruments,  he  ran  across,  in  1874,  Thomas  A.  Wat- 
son, destined  to  become  his  most  valued  associate.  Bell 
confided  to  young  Watson  his  great  idea,  and,  "My 
nervous  system  never  got  a  worse  shock !  "  said  Mr.  Wat- 
son in  later  years. 

The  two  young  men  were  soon  devoting  practically 
their  whole  time  to  the  "  idea,"  Bell  furnishing  the 
plans,  specifications,  etc.,  and  Watson  the  apparatus. 


40  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

On  June  2,  1875,  when  Bell  in  one  room  and  Watson 
in  another,  were  hard  at  work  on  the  apparatus,  a 
strange  sound  suddenly  came  forth,  and  in  that  mo- 
mentous instant  Bell  divined  that  his  idea  of  sending 
sound  over  wires  was  possible. 

Thus  was  born  the  telephone ! 

In  a  flash  Bell  turned  to  Watson  and  asked  him  to 
construct  with  all  possible  haste  a  sound-conveying  ap- 
paratus according  to  new  specifications,  and  the  re- 
sulting crude  apparatus,  which  took  ten  months  to  con- 
struct, was  the  first  speaking  telephone. 

Forty  years  later  Bell  and  Watson  used  this  same 
apparatus  —  the  first  'phone  ever  made  —  in  their 
world-startling  long-distance  talk  between  New  York 
and  San  Francisco  —  nearly  4,000  miles! 

It  was  on  February  14,  1876,  that  "  the  most  valuable 
single  patent  ever  issued  in  any  country," 

U.  S.  Patent  No.  174465 — 

was  issued  by  the  U.  S.  Patent  Office  to  Dr.  Alexander 
Graham  Bell,  then  aged  twenty-nine. 

Strange  to  relate,  on  the  same  day  that  Bell  filed 
his  caveat  upon  the  telephone,  Elisha  Gray,  then  in 
Chicago,  filed  one  also,  but  a  few  hours  later !  Which 
only  illustrates  the  truth  of  the  saying :  "  Great  minds 
run  in  similar  channels."  Bell's  application  was  filed 
first,  and  Bell  got  the  patent,  Gray  perhaps  losing  a 
big  fortune  and  immortality  by  -only  a  few  minutes ! 

Bell,  however,  very  nearly  lost  his  English  patent 
rights.  A  bit  of  luck  due  to  a  singular  accident  alone 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL         41 

saved  him.  It  seems  that  Lord  Kelvin,  formerly  Sir 
William  Thomson,  the  famous  English  physicist,  after 
one  of  his  American  tours,  took  one  of  Bell's  crude  in- 
struments back  to  England  with  him,  intending  to  ex- 
hibit it  as  a  remarkable  Yankee  contrivance.  But  on 
the  voyage  home,  a  certain  spring  on  the  Bell  trans- 
mitter was  bent.  So,  when  the  day  and  hour  of  the 
exhibition  arrived  the  Bell  telephone  wouldn't  work, 
and  it  never  occurred  to  the  distinguished  scientist  to 
press  the  spring  down  again.  As  he  couldn't  make 
it  work,  no  matter  how  he  puzzled  over  the  apparatus, 
his  audience  had  to  be  dismissed  with  an  apology.  Had 
it  worked,  it  would,  under  English  law,  have  consti- 
tuted "  publication  before  application  for  patent "  and 
this  would  have  lost  to  Bell  all  his  chances  of  getting 
his  telephone  patented  in  England.  This  trivial  acci- 
dent to  the  apparatus  saved  Bell.  But  for  a  big  wave 
that  sent  a  ship  over  on  her  beam-ends  and  baggage 
flying  in  every  direction,  the  English  would  have  had 
mighty  cheap  telephones ! 

But  to  return  to  America  and  Dr.  Bell.  Getting  a 
patent  is  one  thing  but  marketing  the  patent  is  an- 
other. Nobody  believed  in  the  telephone.  "  Oh,  it's 
only  a  toy !  "  many  would  say.  Hence  it  proved  well- 
nigh  impossible  (for  a  long  time  to  come)  to  get  any 
one  to  put  money  into  a  telephone  business.  Only  a 
long  and  arduous  campaign  of  educating  the  public,  by 
public  tests  and  lectures,  at  last  removed  prejudice  and 
enabled  the  great  telephone  inventor  to  carry  out  his 
plans. 

Bell's  first  exhibition  of  his  newly-patented  telephone 


42  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

was  at  the  Centennial  Exhibition  in  Philadelphia  in 
1876,  soon  after  his  patent  was  granted.  It  was  a 
curious-looking  object,  or  apparatus,  he  produced  before 
his  large  audience.  An  old  cigar-box,  two  hundred  feet 
of  wire,  two  magnets  from  a  toy  fishpond  —  and  this 
was  all  the  first  Bell  telephone  consisted  of.  But  Lord 
Kelvin,  who  -was  at  the  Exhibition,  spoke  of  it  as  "  per- 
haps the  greatest  marvel  hitherto  achieved  by  the  elec- 
tric telegraph." 

Quite  amusing  to  us  to-day  is  the  account  of  the  first 
long-distance  test.  This  was  between  Boston  and  New 
York,  Professor  Bell  going  to  New  York,  to  take  charge 
of  the  test  at  that  end,  he  having  obtained  permission 
to  use  the  wires  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Telegraph 
Company  for  the  purpose.  One  of  Dr.  Bell's  three  as- 
sociates in  his  telephone  business  was  the  mechanician, 
Thomas  A.  Watson,  then  a  youth  of  twenty.  He  had 
charge  of  the  test  at  the  laboratory  end,  in  Boston. 

"  That  recollection,"  -said  Mr.  Watson  a  few  years 
ago,  "  is  extremely  vivid  in  my  mind  because  it  took 
place  in  very  hot  weather.  Our  laboratory  was  in  the 
upper  floor  of  a  boarding  house,  not  an  expensive  board- 
ing house  either,  I  can  assure  you.  The  house  was  full 
of  boarders,  and  as  we  had  disturbed  them  quite  se- 
riously by  shouting  and  talking  and  all  sorts  of  noisy 
experiments,  we  were,  for  that  and  other  good  and  suffi- 
cient reasons,  not  on  good  terms  with  the  landlady. 

"  So  I  realized  that  as  I  had  to  do  the  shouting  of 
my  life  that  night,  I  must  muffle  the  noise.  So  I  took 
the  blankets  off  my  bed  and  Dr.  Bell's  and  arranged  a 
sort  of  tent  over  my  big  telephone  with  five  thicknesses 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL         43 

of  blanket.  When  I  got  the  signal  from  Dr.  Bell  in 
New  York,  that  he  was  ready  to  hear  from  me,  I 
crawled  in  under  my  blanket  tent  and  for  two  mortal 
hours  I  shouted  to  him.  I  needed  no  Turkish  bath  that 
night ! 

"  The  next  morning  I  asked  the  landlady  rather 
timidly  if  I  had  disturbed  the  boarders  during  the  night. 
They  hadn't  heard  a  sound !  So,  like  many  others,  the 
experiment  was  a  success." 

One  of  Dr.  Bell's  first  lectures  in  New  York  City 
was  illustrated  from  New  Brunswick  on  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad.  A  negro  with  a  fine  baritone  voice  had 
been  engaged  to  do  the  singing  and  young  Watson  went 
there  with  his  instruments,  cornet,  organ,  etc.,  to  super- 
intend the  demonstration.  In  spite  of  all  Watson's  urg- 
ing, the  negro  was  afraid  to  get  close  enough  to  the 
transmitter  for  his  voice  to  be  heard  in  New  York. 
After  his  song  Dr.  Bell  told  Watson,  through  the  'phone, 
that  the  audience  hadn't  heard  a  word  of  it.  "  You 
sing,  Watson,"  he  finally  said. 

Now  the  young  lady  operator  —  one  of  the  first 
"  hello !  "  girls  —  had  invited  a  crowd  of  girl  friends 
to  the  test.  Imagine  young  Watson's  confusion  — 
only  twenty  years  old  and  the  most  bashful  boy  you 
ever  saw!  But  there  was  no  getting  out  of  it,  relates 
Mr.  Watson,  "  I  had  to  sing.  Those  girls  looked  sol- 
emn, and  I  didn't  blame  them;  but  I  sang  my  whole 
repertoire  and  I  could  hear  them  applauding  in  New 
York." 

The  young  Professor  and  his  three  associates  — 
Hubbard,  Sanders  and  the  boy  Watson  —  were  in  ter- 


44  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

rible  need  of  money,  about  this  time,  and  had  just  been 
grievously  disappointed  by  the  Western  Union  Tele- 
graph company,  who  (fortunately  for  Dr.  Bell)  refused 
to  give  $100,000  for  the  Bell  telephone  patent.  Never- 
theless, the  lectures  or  illustrations  given  during  this 
year,  1877,  by  Dr.  Bell  were  the  foundation  of  the 
telephone's  success.  They  aroused  the  intensest  inter- 
est, and  great  crowds  attended  them  first  in  Boston,  then 
in  Salem,  and  later  in  Providence,  where  no  less  than 
2,000  people  crowded  the  hall.  The  youthful  Wat- 
son, the  first  telephone  engineer,  was  always  at  the 
"  other  end/'  and  would  talk  and  sing  hymns  over  the 
'phone,  once  using  a  small  brass  band  to  play  into  the 
receiver. 

Dr.  Bell,  at  this  time  very  poor,  saw  a  chance  to 
make  an  income  out  of  these  lectures,  for  he  was  getting 
requests  in  every  mail  from  other  cities,  so  he  em- 
ployed a  special  agent  to  look  after  this  part  of  the  busi- 
ness and  also  do  some  lecturing.  He  and  Dr.  Bell  lec- 
tured at  the  same  hour,  but  in  different  cities,  young 
Watson  (in  between)  furnishing  the  music,  talk,  etc., 
to  both  lecturers  simultaneously.  These  lectures  at- 
tracted capital  to  the  telephone  business,  then  under 
Bell's  direction,  and  within  a  year  Professor  Bell  suc- 
ceeded in  making  his  telephone  commercially  practica- 
ble. Until  then  it  was  ridiculed  as  a  toy. 

The  resulting  financial  gains  facilitated  the  Profes- 
sor's marriage  to  Mabel,  the  daughter  of  Gardiner  Hub- 
bard,  one  of  his  most  loyal  associates.  Miss  Hubbard 
had  lost  her  hearing  in  infancy,  and  had  been  for  some 
time  one  of  Dr.  Bell's  patients,  deriving  much  benefit 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL         45 

from  his  knowledge  and  scientific  treatment  of  her  ail- 
ment. On  the  day  of  the  marriage,  Dr.  Bell's  gift  to 
his  bride  was  his  stock  in  the  Bell  Telephone  Company 
—  a  gift  to  become  later  one  of  immense  value  —  a  value 
far  up  in  the  millions.  After  the  ceremony  Dr.  Bell  and 
his  bride  took  a  trip  to  England,  leaving  the  tele- 
phone business  in  charge  of  his  associates. 

At  this  period  the  great  pioneers  of  the  telephone 
were,  in  addition  to  Dr.  Bell,  its  inventor,  the  youth 
Thomas  A.  Watson,  who  constructed  it,  Thomas  San- 
ders, who  put  up  the  money  to  finance  it,  and  Dr.  Bell's 
father-in-law,  Gardiner  Hubbard,  the  practical  man  of 
business  who  introduced  it.  The  legal  end  of  the  tele- 
phone business  was  attended  to  by  the  lawyers  James 
Storrow  and  Chauncey  Smith.  Later  on,  Theodore  1ST. 
Vail  welded  the  straggling  telephone  system  into  a 
world-wide  and  immensely  profitable  commercial  enter- 
prise which  in  less  than  forty  years  had  returned  to  its 
shareholders  more  than  $2,000  for  each  $1.00  originally 
invested. 

So  it  was  that  Dr.  Bell's  long  and  laborious  experi- 
ments, conducted  at  a  time  in  his  life  when  he  was  ex- 
tremely poor,  were  crowned  with  success,  and  he  lived 
to  see  the  wonderful  idea  his  brain  had  conceived  evolve 
into  a  billion-dollar  enterprise. 

Fame  and  riches  were  his ! 

In  1880  the  French  Government  awarded  Bell  the 
Volta  prize  of  $10,000,  and  in  1882  added  to  it  the 
Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  Dr.  Bell  devoted  the 
whole  of  the  Yolta  prize  to  founding  the  Yolta  Bureau, 
for  the  "  increase  and  diffusion  of  knowledge  relating 


46  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

to  the  deaf,"  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  in  which  city  for 
many  years  he  made  his  home. 

Another  of  Dr.  BelPs  wonderful  inventions,  fore- 
shadowing the  wireless,  was  his  "  photophone,"  with 
which  one  could  talk  along  a  vibratory  beam  of  light 
instead  of  a  wire.  This  was  never  brought  to  practical 
use. 

Dr.  Bell  was  one  of  the  first  of  our  great  scientists 
and  inventors  to  give  an  impulse  to  aviation.  He  was 
carrying  on  experiments,  with  what  he  called  his  "  tetra- 
hedral  kites,"  and  needed  a  very  light  motor  to  put  in 
them.  Glenn  Curtiss  was  then  at  Hammondsport,  N. 
Y.,  making  motorcycles,  and  Bell  employed  him  to  make 
his  motors,  incidentally,  while  he  was  with  him,  giving 
him  his  idea  for  the  airship  now  bearing  his  name. 

Bell's  services  to  the  deaf,  whom  he  rescued  from 
isolation  by  developing  lip-reading  into  a  science,  were 
incalculable.  In  this  connection  it  was  his  belief  that 
defective  hearing  could  be  bred  out  of  the  human  race. 
He  also  did  much  to  develop  his  father's  method  of 
phonetic  notation  — "  visible  speech." 

At  his  summer  home,  Baddeck,  Nova  Scotia,  he  also 
carried  on  some  valuable  experiments  with  sheep,  tend- 
ing to  show  how  the  production  of  mutton  and  wool 
could  be  increased  and  the  price  lowered. 

For  a  long  time,  too,  Dr.  Bell  conducted  experiments 
and  compiled  some  remarkable  tables  with  the  idea  of 
promoting  longevity  through  sensible  living  and 
eugenics. 

He  was  also  the  co-inventor,  with  C.  A.  Bell  and  S. 
Taintor,  of  the  Graphophone,  an  instrument  for  repro- 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL         47 

ducing  sounds  —  human  speech,  songs,  music,  etc.,  and 
some  other  inventions  of  Dr.  Bell's  were  the  induction 
balance  and  the  telephone  probe,  the  latter  for  pain- 
lessly locating  bullets  or  other  substances  in  human 
bodies. 

But  all  these  pale  into  insignificance  in  comparison 
with  his  mastery  of  telephony.  For  who  can  estimate 
the  benefits  to  humanity  conferred  by  the  now  omni- 
present telephone ! 

High  in  the  Pantheon  of  the  Great  shines  the  name 
of  Alexander  Graham  Bell,  inventor  of  the  telephone. 


JOHN  M.  BROWNING 

THE  GUN  WIZARD  AND  INVENTOR  OF 
THE  MACHINE-GUN 


JOHN  M.  BROWNING 

THE  GUN  WIZARD  AND  INVENTOR  OF 
THE  MACHINE-GUN 

IT  was  in  the  early  '40's,  about  the  time  of  the  great 
California  "  gold  rush/'  that  Johnathan  Brown- 
ing, a  gunsmith,  left  his  home  in  Tennessee  for 
Council  Bluffs,  then  a  small  lowan  trading  post  on  the 
Missouri  River.  Here,  for  some  time,  he  followed  his 
vocation  as  a  maker  and  mender  of  guns,  as  well  as 
mending  plows,  kettles  and  other  camp  utensils  for  the 
settlers. 

In  1852,  however,  piling  his  tools,  his  stock-in-trade 
and  household  goods  into  a  prairie  schooner  —  as  the 
wagons  of  the  plains  were  called  at  that  time  —  he  set 
out  for  the  newly  organized  Territory  of  Utah.  It  took 
his  oxen  a  whole  month  to  reach  Ogden,  in  the  Mormon 
country,  and  here  he  located  and  soon  had  a  thriving 
business  as  gunsmith  and  general  tinker,  for  wild  and 
unsettled  were  the  times,  and  pioneers  were  coming 
and  going  all  the  time. 

It  was  in  this,  then  small  Far  Western  settlement  that 
his  son,  John  M.  Browning,  destined  to  become  the 
world's  most  famous  gun  inventor,  was  born  in  1854. 

"  Jack  "  Browning,  not  very  long  after  learning  to 
walk,  decided  that  his  father's  gunshop  was  the  most 
fascinating  place  to  play  in  he  could  find.  He  never 
grew  tired  of  puttering  around  the  junk  heap,  or 

51 


52  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

watching  his  father  at  the  forge  tinker  up  a  teapot, 
mend  a  plow,  gun  or  clock.  It  was  all  great  fun  for 
the  boy,  and,  all  unconsciously,  he  was  learning  some- 
thing. 

And  so  he  grew  up,  mostly  in  the  gunshop,  his  techni- 
cal school,  little  dreaming  that  his  tinkering  with  the 
junk  pile  would  some  day  roll  wealth  into  his  pocket 
at  the  rate  of  $3,000  a  day,  and  hitch  his  name  to  the 
deadliest  gun  ever  made,  an  invention  of  his  own. 

"  Jack's  "  father  sold  guns  as  well  as  mended  them. 
He  turned  out  a  very  good  article,  and  supplied  the 
settlers,  near  and  far,  with  firearms  of  his  own  manu- 
facture. They  were  needed  in  those  days,  not  only 
as  protection  against  animals  but  against  Indians,  many 
of  whom  were  hostile. 

You  may  be  sure  that  Jack  knew  how  these  guns 
were  made.  He  had  keen  powers  of  observation  and 
a  good  memory ;  and  he  had  watched  his  father  making 
them  an  uncounted  number  of  times. 

One  day,  when  he  was  about  fourteen,  he  said  to  his 
father : 

"  I'd  like  a  gun." 

"Well,"  his  father  replied,  hesitatingly,  "I  might 
loan  you  one  of  these,  here,  if  you'll  be  keerful." 

"  But  I  want  one  for  my  very  own !  " 

His  father  shook  his  head: 

"Can't  afford  it!" 

"  I'll  make  one  myself  then,  and  it  won't  cost  any- 
thing !  "  was  the  boy's  impetuous  retort. 

"  All  right !  All  right !  "  laughed  his  father.  "  Go 
ahead  —  but  don't  you  go  a-shootin'  any  gun  of  your 


JOHN  M.  BROWNING  53 

own  contrivance  until  I  try  it  first  —  it's  as  like  to  shoot 
both  ends  and  in  the  middle  —  all  at  once !  " 

Jack  beamed  with  joy,  and  sprang  for  the  scrap- 
heap,  the  place  where  his  father  threw  bits  of  iron, 
gun  parts  and  other  worthless  material.  He  soon  found 
what  he  wanted,  put  it  on  the  lathe,  and,  before  long, 
had  a  gun-barrel  with  a  nice  clean  bore.  He  next  as- 
sembled the  parts,  whittled  the  stock  with  his  own  hands, 
and  finally  put  the  weapon  together.  He  had  made  a 
gun! 

Then,  remembering  his  father's  warning,  he  turned 
his  home-made  gun  over  to  him  for  inspection. 

His  father,  surprised  at  the  result  of  his  son's  in- 
dustry and  mechanical  ingenuity,  examined  the  gun 
very  closely.  Then  he  put  a  light  charge  of  powder 
in  it  (for  it  was,  of  course,  a  muzzle-loader),  rammed 
home  a  bullet,  and,  aiming  at  the  test-target,  fired. 

But  it  scarcely  needed  this  test  to  prove  to  the  old 
man  that  his  son  had  fabricated  a  mighty  good  fire- 
arm —  as  good  a  gun  as  any  he  had  ever  made  him- 
self. 

He  didn't  want  to  spoil  the  boy,  so  he  merely  told 
him  he'd  "  done  well."  To  his  friends,  privately,  the 
veteran  gunsmith  reckoned  that  "  Jack  has  made  a  bet- 
ter gun  than  I  ever  made."  Such  praise  of  Jack 
Browning's  prowess  as  a  gunmaker  aroused  great  cu- 
riosity. Everybody  wanted  to  see  the  gun  and  try  it 
and  quite  a  few  wanted  one  "  just  like  it."  Orders 
poured  in,  and  Jack  pitched  in  with  his  father  and 
brothers,  thus  beginning  in  earnest  his  career  as  gun- 
maker. 


54  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

Jack  became  an  expert  shot  with  his  self-made  gun, 
and  was  soon  supplying  the  family  table  from  his  game- 
bag.  What  with  his  shooting  excursions,  schooling, 
and  work  in  his  father's  shop  the  youth  led  a  busy  life. 
He  wasted  no  time,  and,  what  is  more,  determined  to 
improve  upon  his  gun  —  to  make  a  still  better  one. 
The  same  year  he  designed  a  breech  mechanism  (whit- 
tling it  out  of  wood)  that  surprised  his  father. 

Before  he  was  twenty-five  young  Browning  had  made 
the  first  of  his  single-shot  rifles,  which  was  a  great  suc- 
cess. It  was  an  improvement  upon  anything  that  had 
gone  before,  and  he  and  his  brothers  made  and  sold 
about  five  hundred  of  these  new  models,  for  it  became 
in  great  demand.  Then  one  of  the  new  weapons  fell 
into  the  hands  of  an  official  of  a  famous  arms  company, 
which  sent  a  man  in  hot  haste  to  Ogden  to  find  the 
man  that  made  it. 

The  man  that  made  the  gun  —  and  a  very  modest 
man,  too, —  was  John  M.  Browning,  as  we  have  seen. 

"  Will  you  show  me  how  it  is  made  ?  "  he  was  asked. 

"  Certainly,"  he  responded,  and  the  official  was 
amazed  at  the  way  they  turned  out  these  rifles  by 
hand. 

"  Is  it  patented  ?  " 

It  certainly  was  patented. 

"  Will  you  sell  us  the  patent  ?  " 

Young  Browning  didn't  know.  He  had  made  a  good 
thing  out  of  it.  He  was  working  early  and  late  trying 
to  fill  orders.  It  seemed  rather  poor  business  to  sell  a 
patent  that  was  keeping  him  in  all  the  work  he  could 
attend  to.  But  the  man  from  the  Winchester  Arms  Co. 


JOHN  M.  BROWNING  55 

named  a  sum  that  almost  staggered  the  young  inventor. 
So  he  sold  his  patent,  and  his  design  was  the  basis  of 
the  first  Winchester  single-shot  rifles  of  all  calibers. 

Thus  began  John  M.  Browning's  career  as  an  inventor 
of  firearms.  It  would  take  an  expert  in  arms  now  to 
understand  or  enumerate  all  Browning's  inventions. 
But  it  may  be  said  that  his  work  includes  every  rifle  — 
from  single-shot  to  repeaters  —  that  the  Winchester  con- 
cern has  produced;  every  gun  made  by  the  famous 
Fabrique  Rationale,  of  Belgium;  the  Colt  automatic 
pistols  and  machine-gun;  Remington  shotgun  and  re- 
peating rifle;  Stevens  rifle,  and  the  box  magazine  used 
by  the  United  States  in  the  Spanish  War. 

He  is  the  wizard  of  firearms  —  a  gun  genius.  His 
famous  1886  model  rifle  sent  all  others  to  the  scrap 
heap,  so  superior  it  was;  and  the  1890  model  of  his 
lever  shotgun,  which  he  invented,  has  outsold  all  other 
models  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  He  was  responsible, 
top,  for  radical  changes  in  rifle  calibers.  Most  of  us 
to-day  can  remember  the  .22,  .32,  .38,  .40  and  .44, 
which  seemed  as  set  and  permanent  as  the  everlasting 
hills.  But  Mr.  Browning  developed  such  calibers  as 
the  "  30-30,"  the  "  25-20,"  and  others  known  to  sports- 
men the  world  over. 

For  many  years  the  bright  nickel  barrel  and  the 
round,  revolving  chamber  marked  the  revolver.  To-day 
that  'type  is  not  so  familiar.  We  see  more  and  more 
that  ugly,  flat,  cold-blooded  looking  weapon  made  and 
automatically  shoots  to  kill.  It  is  the  work  of  Mr. 
Browning. 

One  day  Mr.  Browning  took  a  square  piece  of  oak, 


56  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

bored  a  hole  exactly  the  size  of  a  .40  caliber  rifle  against 
it  so  that  the  bullet  would  go  through  the  hole,  and 
tried  an  important  experiment. 

He  had  figured  out  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
wasted  force  in  the  gas  caused  by  the  combustion  of 
the  powder.  He  wanted  to  make  sure  how  much  force 
there  was  to  this.  He  took  no  chances,  but  fastened 
the  rifle  against  the  board,  attached  a  cord  to  the  trigger 
and  yanked. 

Fortunately,  it  was  a  long  cord,  because  the  force  of 
the  gas  knocked  the  rifle  back  half  way  across  the  room. 
This  was  the  basis  of  his  automatics,  the  basis  of  his 
famous  Browning  gun  which,  during  the  war,  was 
turned  out  wholesale  and  shipped  to  France. 

At  the  time  Mr.  Browning  made  his  test  he  was  asked 
about  it. 

"  I'm  trying  to  harness  the  *  kick/  "  he  declared, 
solemnly. 

They  laughed.  It  was  "  one  of  John's  jokes,"  they 
said. 

It  was  a  joke  that  changed  history.  For  very  soon 
Browning  utilized  the  power  of  the  gas  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  a  part  of  this  wasted  pressure  was  transferred 
to  the  breech  mechanism  and  made  to  operate  the  gun. 
One  pull  of  the  trigger  and  the  rebound  fired  the  weapon 
a  second  time,  this  rebound  fired  it  a  third  time,  and 
so  on  until  he  soon  had  a  gun  that,  with  a  single  pull 
at  the  trigger,  would  fire  six  hundred  bullets  in  less 
than  a  minute ! 

The  outcome  of  these  experiments  was  the  automatic 
firearm,  or  the  famous  old  Colt's  machine-gun,  at  the 


JOHN  M.  BROWNING  57 

time  one  of  the  best  in  the  world.  It  was  adopted  by 
the  United  States  Army  and  Navy  and  was  the  only 
machine-gun  we  used  during  the  Spanish  War.  During 
the  Boxer  uprising  in  China  a  detachment  of  our  ma- 
rines with  only  two  of  these  Colt's  machine-guns  — 
Browning's  invention  —  saved  the  foreign  legations 
from  destruction  and  the  inmates  from  butchery. 

In  1914,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  world  war,  the  only 
plant  in  the  United  States  for  the  manufacture  of  ma- 
chine-guns was  turning  out  this  weapon,  and  quantities 
of  them  were  sold  to  the  Allied  Governments. 

When  matters  began  to  look  as  though  we  would  get 
into  the  fight  there  came  a  demand  from  our  Ordnance 
Department  for  machine-guns.  Experts  began  investi- 
gations. The  Lewis  gun  was  conceded  to  be  a  "  won- 
der." It  did  terrible  execution.  But  there  was  one 
drawback,  it  was  claimed:  even  the  lightest  of  these 
Lewis  guns  could  not  be  fired  by  a  single  man  except 
under  the  very  best  of  circumstances.  And  in  our 
present  form  of  warfare  there's  no  such  thing  as  any 
"  best  of  circumstances." 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Browning  continued  to  "  putter " 
about  his  workshop  in  Ogden.  He  was  working  on  an 
improvement  of  the  machine-gun. 

This  Wizard  of  Firearms  has  never  been  content  to 
sit  back  after  one  big  achievement  and  rest  on  his 
laurels.  Sometimes  he  takes  a  bit  of  a  fishing  trip  by 
way  of  rest,  then  back  again  to  his  shop  to  try  to  make 
still  better  what  has  just  been  conceded  to  be  his 
best. 

He  knew  what  was  wanted  —  a  rifle  as  light  as  the 


58  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

average  service  gun  that  an  enlisted  man  might  use  as 
he  would  an  ordinary  rifle  and  yet,  by  a  single  pressure 
of  the  finger,  pour  an  endless  stream  of  bullets  into  the 
enemy. 

This  was  out  of  the  question,  of  course.  But  he  did 
the  next  best  thing  —  he  perfected  a  machine-gun  that 
is  no  heavier  than  the  average  rifle  sportsmen  use  for 
moose  and  bear.  In  fact,  a  lighter  rifle  than  that  used 
by  African  hunters  for  the  biggest  game  —  yet  this 
machine-gun  that  he  turned  out  can  be  lifted  to  the 
shoulder  as  any  gun  and  forty  bullets  poured  into  the 
enemy  in  less  than  two  and  a  half  seconds  —  like  water 
from  a  garden  hose.  Then  he  invented  a  heavier  ma- 
chine-gun, water-cooled. 

February  27,  1918,  was  a  great  day  in  the  history  of 
machine-guns,  for  this  was  the  day  the  Government 
tested  the  new  Browning  invention  at  Washington. 
More  than  three  hundred  witnessed  the  tests,  including 
British,  French,  Belgian  and  Italian  army  officers,  our 
own  army  officers,  many  Senators  and  Representatives, 
and,  of  course,  writers  for  magazines  and  newspapers. 

"  A  success !  "  was  the  unanimous  verdict.  And 
Secretary  of  War  Baker  remarked : 

"  It  has  paid  us  to  wait,  for  we  now  have  the  very 
best  machine-gun  in  the  world." 

The  lighter  gun  was  first  tried.  Weighing  only  fif- 
teen pounds  the  "  little  one "  shoots  twenty  or  forty 
bullets  at  one  time.  One  move  of  a  lever  cocks  the 
weapon,  one  pressure  of  the  finger  discharges  it,  and 
the  shots  pour  out  as  fast  as  one  can  follow  another 
from  the  muzzle.  It  is  air-cooled  and  works  of  itself, 


JOHN  M.  BEOWNING  59 

automatically,  after  the  first  shot,  by  means  of  gas 
pressure. 

A  soldier  using  this  gun  could  spray  an  advancing 
enemy  with  forty  bullets  before  he  could  fire  six  with  an 
ordinary  repeating  arm.  The  only  tool  necessary  in 
taking  the  gun  apart  is  the  edge  of  a  cartridge.  One 
man  operates  it  quite  alone,  feeding  the  clips  and  shoot- 
ing. 

A  hundred  men,  each  armed  with  this  gun,  could 
destroy  a  couple  of  regiments.  Or  for  advance,  noth- 
ing could  stand  up  under  them. 

The  wicked  weapon,  however,  is  the  Browning  heavy 
machine-gun.  This  is  water-cooled  and  works  on  a  tri- 
pod, but  it  weighs  only  thirty-two  pounds.  In  the  test 
twenty  thousand  rounds  were  fired  without  a  break  or  a 
malfunction  of  any  sort.  In  another  test  out  of  twenty 
thousand  shots  there  were  but  three  misses,  due  each 
time  to  a  bad  cartridge.  In  a  supreme  test,  thirty-nine 
thousand  five  hundred  shots  were  fired  in  such  instan- 
taneous succession  that  the  report  sounded  like  one 
noise.  Then  the  gear  gave  way.  But  no  such  test 
would  ever  be  made  in  actual  warfare,  as  such  guns 
are  worked  in  pairs,  one  to  rest,  cool,  be  reloaded  and  set 
back  in  place  while  the  other  is  operating.  This  gun  is 
to  be  used  for  aviation  service,  stripped  of  its  water- 
cooler  jacket,  as  the  air  will  serve  as  a  cooler.  In  this 
shape  it  weighs  but  twenty-two  and  a  half  pounds. 

The  details  of  this  test  are  history.  They  astounded 
the  world.  The  verdict  from  every  one,  everywhere, 
was: 

"  This  is  the  best  machine-gun  made." 


60  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

It  was  fifty-two  years  ago  that  John  M.  Browning 
made  his  first  gun.  He  has  been  making  them,  invent- 
ing new  ones,  improving  old  ones,  ever  since. 

And  for  the  first  time  in  his  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury of  gun-making  he  has  permitted  his  name  to  be 
used  in  connection  with  a  firearm. 

It  is  little  wonder  that  he  was  not  widely  known. 
It  is  little  wonder  that  many  people  looked  askance 
when  it  was  announced  that  the  Government  had 
adopted  the  Browning  gun.  Go  to  any  big  gun  manu- 
facturing concern  in  the  world  and  use  his  name  and 
you  will  find  out  that  this  man  is  known.  It  is  said 
that  there  was  not  a  firearm  plant  in  the  world  of  the 
modern  type  but  what,  before  the  present  war,  was 
paying  some  sort  of  a  royalty  to  a  "  Yankee  chap  named 
Browning." 

"  Browning  ?  "  they  would  repeat,  "  ah,  yes ;  the 
American  wizard  of  firearms.  See  —  this  gun,  and  that 
one  —  this  appliance,  that  improvement.  His!  We 
must  pay  him  a  royalty  to  use  it !  " 

The  great  wizard  of  electricity,  Edison,  since  the 
day  he  sold  papers  on  trains  and  rigged  up  a  tiny  lab- 
oratory in  a  baggage  car,  has  made  no  greater  strides, 
up  to  now,  than  did  Browning,  from  the  day  when,  a 
thirteen-year-old  boy,  he  turned  out  his  first  gun  on 
an  old  wooden  foot-power  lathe  up  to  his  latest  achieve- 
ment, the  "  Browning  machine-gun." 

His  income  from  royalties  on  his  inventions  is  nat- 
urally enormous,  and  estimated  at  $1,000,000  a  year. 
But  he  still  keeps  up  his  habits  of  industry  and  simple 
tastes. 


JOHN  M.  BEOWNING  61 

If  you  stroll  into  his  shop  some  day,  you're  sure  to 
find  John  M.  Browning,  the  "  gun  wizard,"  in  overalls 
and  jumper  at  a  bench  whistling  as  he  toils  away  on 
some  new  device  for  weapons.  If  he  is  at  home  you'll 
likely  find  him  in  a  plainly  furnished  living-room  in  a 
rocker  playing  "  Blue  Bells  of  Scotland "  on  his  be- 
loved banjo. 

The  two  things  he  likes  best  to  do  are  tinkering  with 
firearms  and  playing  the  banjo.  For  sport  he  likes  a 
mountain  stream  and  a  hatband  full  of  trout  flies,  and, 
in  the  hunting  season,  he  goes  up  in  Wyoming  after 
bear  and  other  big  game. 

A  fine  upstanding  man  is  Browning,  the  "  gun  man  " 
—  six  feet  three  inches  tall,  straight  as  an  Indian,  and 
as  active  and  vigorous  as  a  young  man  of  thirty.  He 
never  "  cottoned  "  to  citified  ways,  prefers  ready-made 
clothes,  and  a  very  narrow  straight  collar. 

When,  after  we  entered  the  war,  it  was  announced 
that  the  War  Department  of  the  United  States  had 
adopted  the  "  Browning  machine-gun,"  the  cry  went 
up  "  Who  is  Browning  ? "  Though  he  had  been  in- 
venting firearms  for  many  years  he  had  never  put  his 
name  to  any  of  his  models,  and  nobody  knew  this  man 
of  Ogden,  Utah. 

"  Ogden !  "  one  official  would  exclaim  with  a  super- 
cilious smile.  "  Queer  place  for  a  machine-gun  to 
hail  from !  —  If  it  had  been  Ilion  or  Bridgeport  — " 

It  did  seem  absurd,  for  up  to  the  time  that  John  M. 
Browning  —  the  gun-boy  of  Ogden  —  perfected  his  new 
machine-gun  his  name  had  not  appeared  on  any  of  his 
guns.  None  the  less  — 


62  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

Every  Winchester  rifle;  every  Remington  shotgun; 
every  Remington  automatic  rifle;  every  Colt  machine- 
gun;  every  Colt  automatic  pistol  (such  as  our  army  of- 
ficers carry)  ;  every  one  of  the  million  army  pistols  man- 
ufactured by  a  Belgian  concern  —  every  one  of  these, 
and  more,  WAS  A  BROWNING  GUN  ! 

He  invented  all  of  them ! 

And  of  the  millions  upon  millions  of  these  firearms, 
known  and  carried  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  not 
one  bore  his  name. 

There  was  a  time  when  Wilhelm  Hohenzollern 
proudly  carried  a  handsome  pistol  presented  to  him  by 
Albert,  King  of  Belgium. 

John  M.  Browning  invented  it. 

When  Admiral  Robert  E.  Peary  planted  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  at  the  North  Pole  he  had  a  Winchester  re- 
peating rifle,  model  792,  in  his  hand. 

John  M.  Browning  invented  it. 

When,  on  that  fatal  summer  day  in  1914,  a  Serbian 
fanatic  shot  an  Austrian  Archduke  to  death  and  pre- 
cipitated the  world  war,  he  did  it  with  an  automatic 
pistol. 

John  M.  Browning  invented  it. 

An  Englishman  of  title,  on  a  government  mission  to 
this  country,  had  occasion  to  call  on  Mr.  Browning  at 
his  home  in  Ogden.  The  English  official  bowed  low. 

"  Sir  John  M.  Browning  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  John  M.  Browning,  sitr/'  snapped  Mr.  Browning. 
The  Englishman  took  the  hint  and  called  him  u  Mis- 
ter "  after  that.  However,  the  Englishman  was  cor- 
rect. Mr.  Browning  has  every  right  to  be  addressed  as 


JOHN  M.  BKOWNING  63 

"  Sir,"  because,  early  in  1914,  King  Albert  of  Belgium 
conferred  upon  him  the  decoration  of  "  Chevalier  de 
TOrdre  de  Leopold." 

It  is  an  attractive  decoration  —  so  it  is  said.  Mr. 
Browning  tucked  it  away  in  some  mysterious  place  and 
never  even  exhibited  it,  much  less  wore  it, 

So  it  is  of  no  use  to  look  in  the  "  Almanach  de 
Gotha  "  or  even  in  "  Who's  Who  in  America  "  for  in- 
formation concerning  Mr.  Browning.  His  name  does 
not  appear  in  those  interesting  volumes. 

Not  one  in  a  thousand,  probably  not  one  in  ten  thou- 
sand, who  has  carried  Winchesters,  Remingtons,  Colts, 
Stevens,  and  such  familiar  firearms  into  the  woods  dur- 
ing the  game  season,  or  used  them  at  target  practice, 
coupled  the  name  of  Browning,  when  they  read  about 
his  machine-gun,  with  their  weapons.  But  despite  the 
fact  that  various  names  and  corporations  appear  on 
these  guns,  the  man  who  created  them,  the  man  who 
modified  and  improved  and  simplified  them,  was  this 
same  John  M.  Browning. 

There  is  no  Browning  arms  plant  in  Ogden.  There 
is  a  well-equipped  shop  where  Mr.  Browning  "  putters 
around,"  as  he  himself  phrases  it,  but  he  does  not  man- 
ufacture firearms.  He  doesn't  have  to.  He  invents 
them  and  lets  the  other  fellow  manufacture  them  while 
he  banks  his  royalties. 

Sometimes  a  firearms  concern  wires  him  to  come  East 
and  help  on  a  model.  He  looks  over  their  drawings, 
then  over  his  own  model  to  refresh  his  memory  —  he 
has  made  so  many  they  are  difficult  to  classify  at  a 
glance  —  and  starts  to  make  a  few  drawings  himself. 


64  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

By  night  he  has  completed  the  work.  They  hand  him 
a  check  for  ten  thousand  dollars  and  a  certain  agree- 
ment concerning  royalties,  and  back  he  goes  to  his  little 
shop  and  his  hanjo. 

While  strumming  on  his  hanjo  out  in  Ogden  he  is 
thinking  up  improvements  on  what  is  conceded  to  be 
the  best  machine-gun  in  the  world. 


WILLIAM  ANDREWS  CLARK 

MONTANA  COPPER  KINO  AND  UNITED 
STATES  SENATOR 


WILLIAM    ANDREWS    CLARK' 


WILLIAM  ANDREWS  CLARK 

MONTANA  COPPER  KING  AND  UNITED 
STATES  SENATOE 

IT  had  been  snowing  steadily  for  a  month  and  Last 
Chance  Gulch,  the  new  Montana  mining  camp,  was 
buried  deep  under  a  heavy  white  blanket.  Eor  a 
week  or  more  no  communication  had  been  possible  with 
the  outside  world,  the  camp  was  practically  cut  off  and 
provisions  were  running  1'ow.  It  was  getting  close  to 
Christmas,  too,  when  the  miners,  scattered  among  the 
hills  hard  at  work  on  their  various  claims,  would  gather 
in  camp  and  "  whoop  things  up  "  socially. 

But  Last  Chance  Gulch's  isolation  was  unexpectedly 
broken  one  day  by  the  advent  of  a  two-horse  sled  bring- 
ing mail  —  and  bad  news !  The  steamer,  with  supplies 
for  the  camp  —  especially  tobacco  —  had  struck  a  snag 
on  the  Missouri  River,  and  gone  down  with  all  her 
cargo ! 

This  meant  a  tobacco-famine  for  Last  Chance  Gulch 
and  there  was  growing  excitement  and  anger  among 
the  red-shirted  miners.  Many  were  the  lamentations 
and  curses,  for  to  the  rough  fighters  of  the  wilderness 
tobacco  was  the  most  precious  commodity  that  came  to 
the  camp.  And  then  there  was  Christmas  close  at  hand, 
a  time  of  jollity  and  jamboreeing. 

Just  about  this  time  —  the  early  ?60's  —  be  it  noted, 

67 


68  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTEY 

flour  was  selling  at  $150.00  a  barrel  and  ham  at  a  dollar 
a  pound. 

Now  there  happened  to  he  in  the  camp  an  unusually 
shrewd  and  courageous  young  man  named  Clark.  Com- 
ing to  Last  Chance  Gulch  after  two  months'  hard,  dan- 
gerous travel  with  an  ox-team,  all  the  way  from  Col- 
orado, he  had  staked  out  a  claim  and  cleaned  up  $1,500 
the  first  season.  But  he  had  decided  that  there  was 
more  money  —  dead-sure  money  —  at  that  time  in  trad- 
ing than  in  gold-mining;  so  he  had  put  all  his  capital 
into  provisions,  which  he  bought  at  Salt  Lake  City  and 
sold  to  the  miners  for  their  gold  dust.  In  a  year  the 
young  trader's  capital  had  increased  to  $7,500. 

Now,  Clark,  the  moment  he  heard  of  the  wreck  of  the 
Prairie  Belle,  saw  a  golden  opportunity  to  double  his 
capital  within  sixty  days.  He  determined  to  get  to- 
bacco for  Last  Chance  Gulch,  or  die  in  the  attempt! 

It  was  mid-winter,  the  thermometer  twenty-three  de- 
grees below  zero,  when  Clark  harnessed  his  horse  for 
his  wild,  dangerous  ride  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
to  Boise  City,  Idaho,  his  nearest  supply  point.  The 
miners  gave  the  plucky  young  man  a  rousing  send-off, 
but  few  among  them  ever  expected  to  see  him  alive 
again. 

When  this  lucky  chance  came,  Clark  had  tried  his 
hand  at  about  everything  in  which  he  saw  a  chance  of 
success.  He  had  been  teamster,  miner,  trader,  and 
had  lived  a  life  of  incessant  and  arduous  labor.  Bent 
double,  he  had  "  panned  "  gold  wherever  there  was  a 
likely  stream,  up  to  his  middle  often  in  icy  water;  he 
had  driven  ox  and  mule-teams  through  an  Indian-in- 


WILLIAM  ANDREWS  CLARK          69 

fested  court-try,  once  three  hundred  miles  through  the 
roughest  kind  of  wilderness,  so  by  this  time  he  was  in- 
ured to  all  sorts  of  weather  and  hardships,  and  as  hard 
as  iron  physically.  Yet  to  most  people  his  expedition 
seemed  doomed  to  failure. 

"  He'll  never  get  through  in  this  blizzard !  "  said  a 
grizzled  old  forty-niner. 

But  on  January  1,  New  Year's  Day,  Clark  rode  tri- 
umphantly into  Last  Chance  Gulch  with  two  thousand 
pounds  of  tobacco  in  his  wagon  which  had  cost  him  three 
thousand  dollars,,  He  sold  it  for  ten  thousand  dollars 
and  was  the  most  popular  man  in  Helena. 

"  It  was,"  he  once  said,  "  the  worst  ride  of  my  life. 
The  snow  was  deep  everywhere,  my  horse  could  hardly 
get  through.  A  dozen  times  I  thought  it  was  all  up 
with  me,  but  I  stuck  to  my  saddle  and  my  horse  was  a 
fine  brute.  It  was  really  he  who  pulled  us  through." 

In  another  year  he  was  doing  a  wholesale  tobacco 
business  all  over  central  Montana,  and  had  gained  such 
a  reputation  for  honesty  and  square  dealing  that  large 
sums  of  money  were  entrusted  to  his  keeping  by  the 
miners,  for,  of  course,  there  were  no  banks  in  the 
camp  then.  Another  of  his  famous  "  deals  "  was  in 
baking-powder,  after  which  the  "  boys "  called  him 
"  Baking-Powder  "  Billy. 

This  gritty  young  man,  William  Andrews  Clark, 
destined  to  be  one  of  America's  wealthiest  men,  was 
born  on  a  farm  near  Connellsville,  Pa.,  on  January  8, 
1839.  All  the  education  he  received  was  in  the  com- 
mon schools,  and,  like  all  farmers'  sons,  he  had  to  work 
on  his  father's  farm  in  summer,  attending  school  in 


70  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

winter.  His  grandfather  was  of  good  old  Irish  stock, 
and  from  him  the  boy  inherited  his  qualities  of  thrift 
and  industry.  His  grandmother  was  of  French  Hugue- 
not descent,  and  to  her  he  owes  the  pronounced  artistic 
instincts  which  found  expression  as  soon  as  he  became 
wealthy. 

In  1856  the  family  moved  to  Iowa,  where  the  boy 
worked  on  the  farm  and  studied  law  at  the  University 
of  Mount  Pleasant.  Then,  having  no  money,  he  taught 
school  for  a  while.  But  the  humdrum  life  of  a  school 
teacher  had  little  fascination  for  so  energetic  and  am- 
bitious a  boy,  and,  becoming  restless,  he  decided  to  go 
farther  West  and  join  the  pioneers.  Missouri,  then  a 
frontier  State,  was  his  first  stopping-place,  and  there 
he  caught  the  mining  fever  and  traveled  overland  to 
Colorado,  where,  after  working  ^  quartz  mine  at  South 
Park,  he  made  his  way,  as  has  been  told,  to  the  newly- 
discovered  gold  camp,  Last  Chance  Gulch,  in  the  Ban- 
nock district  of  Montana. 

After  young  Clark's  famous  ride,  which  gave  him 
the  foundation  of  his  fortune,  he  opened  up  other  stores 
in  the  territory,  continued  his  trading,  making  money 
all  the  time,  even  securing  a  mail  route  from  Fort  Ben- 
ton  to  Sioux  City,  and  later  a  Star  route  between  Mis- 
soula  and  Walla  Walla.  Then  he  founded  the  firm  of 
Clark,  Larabie  &  Co.,  which,  before  long,  became  one 
of  the  largest  jobbing  concerns  in  the  Northwest,  and 
also  opened  a  bank. 

He  had  plenty  of  capital  now,  and,  with  his  usual 
wisdom,  decided  that  it  was  about  time  he  examined  the 
copper  possibilities  of  the  territory.  First  he  secured 


WILLIAM  ANDREWS  CLAEK          71 

claims,  buying  some  outright  and  some  on  options,  and 
then  to  everybody's  surprise,  went  to  New  York  City 
to  study  mining  and  metallurgy  at  the  Columbia  School 
of  Mines,  for,  with  his  usual  shrewdness  and  thorough- 
ness, he  wanted  to  be  able  to  find  out  for  himself  what 
was  in  his  mines.  It  is  not  always  safe,  in  the  min- 
ing industry,  to  take  "the  other  feller's"  word  for 
it! 

He  was  thirty-three  years  old  when  he  returned  to 
Butte,  the  hub  of  the  Montana  copper  region,  where  he 
installed  at  his  copper  property  the  first  stamp  mill. 
A  stamp  mill  is  a  mill  containing  what  is  called  a  "  bat- 
tery "  of  stamps.  The  raw  ore,  embedded  in  rock  or 
quartz,  is  fed  into  the  battery  along  with  a  steady  stream 
of  water.  Simultaneously,  the  enormously  heavy 
stamps  are  rapidly  jiggled  up  and  down  by  machinery, 
falling,  almost  in  unison,  like  giant  hammers,  upon  the 
ore  and  pounding  it  to  pulp.  The  refuse  flows  off  in 
the  sluice,  the  residue  (metal)  is  saved.  Formerly  this 
crushing  had  to  be  done  by  hand  with  an  ordinary  ham- 
mer —  a  slow,  costly  process. 

A  stamp  mill,  needless  to  say,  is  about  the  noisiest, 
wettest,  slimiest  place  on  earth.  The  stamps,  like  a 
drum,  keep  up  an  incessant  tattoo,  drowning  the  roar  of 
the  ore  dropping  into  -the  chutes,  and  water  splashes 
about  everywhere. 

It  was  about  this  period  that  electricity  began  to  be 
widely  used  as  a  motive  power  in  place  of  steam.  Mr. 
Clark  again  read  the  future  correctly  when  he  foresaw 
an  enormous  demand  for  copper  for  wires.  So  he 
hunted  around  for  another  copper  property,  examining 


72  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

dozens  of  promising  prospects  in  the  course  of  his 
search. 

In  Arizona  Clark  stumbled  upon  the  biggest  piece  of 
luck  of  his  life.  About  thirty  miles  east  of  Phrenix 
was  a  group  of  claims  which,  he  intuitively  felt,  were 
what  he  wanted.  Elding  his  horse  up  to  the  owner's 
cabin,  he  asked  him  what  he  wanted  for  them.  The 
owner  looked  at  the  little  tanned,  reddish-bearded  man, 
and,  laughing,  for  he  thought  Clark  was  joking,  an- 
swered offhand: 

"  One  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars." 

"  All  right/7  said  Clark,  "  make  out  the  papers,  and 
I'll  give  you  a  check  for  fifty  thousand  dollars  and  the 
balance  in  thirty  days." 

The  camp  was  electrified  when  the  deal  went  through, 
and  Clark  got  the  group  of  claims  now  known  as  the 
United  Verde  Mine  —  a  copper  mine  that  has  been 
yielding  him  for  many  years  a  million  dollars  a  month ! 

How  did  Clark  arrive  at  his  belief  that  there  was  a 
great  deposit  of  the  red  metal  in  this  precise  spot  ? 

Perhaps  because  he  had  studied  mining  and  metal- 
lurgy at  an  Eastern  school  of  mines,  and  knew  a  good 
deal  about  geology,  and  especially  about  geological  for- 
mations local  to  Butte,  his  headquarters.  He  had 
studied  the  "  outer oppings  "  in  his  region,  the  lava-like 
rock,  or  ore,  that,  ages  back,  bubbled  to  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  cooled  and  hardened.  These  "  outer  oppings," 
if  they  contained  mineral  —  precious  or  other  metal  — 
denote  deposits  of  it  below,  perhaps  close  to  the  surface. 
And  the  deeper  one  digs,  the  purer  and  richer  the  ore  in 
these  deposits  is. 


WILLIAM  ANDEEWS  CLAEK         73 

This  is  how  Clark  knew  the  value  of  these  mining 
claims  he  was  buying,  and  his  judgment  was  again  cor- 
rect. 

Before  long,  Mr.  Clark  built  a  railway  from  his 
mine  to  the  main  line,  erected  smelting  works  to  treat 
his  own  ore,  and,  as  the  number  of  his  employees  in- 
creased and  stores  were  opened  to  supply  them,  the  town 
of  Jerome,  Arizona,  sprang  up. 

It  is  doubtful  if  Mr.  Clark  would  take  $100,000,000 
cash  for  his  mine  to-day.  No  one  knows  what  United 
Verde  stock  is  worth ;  there  are  no  quotations  anywhere 
and  none  for  sale. 

Wealth  poured  in  upon  the  young  man  from  Connells- 
ville  rapidly  now,  and  his  reputation  as  a  man  of  great 
ability  spread  throughout  Montana.  He  was  the  Ter- 
ritory's wealthiest  and  foremost  citizen,  and,  as  such, 
represented  Montana  as  orator  at  the  Philadelphia  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition  of  18  76.  In  1877  he  was  elected 
grand  master  of  the  Montana  Masonic  fraternity,  and 
the  same  year  was  commissioned  major  of  a  Butte  bat- 
talion that  pursued  Chief  Joseph  and  his  band  of  red- 
skins in  the  K~ez  Perce  war.  In  1884,  he  was  Mon- 
tana's Commissioner  to  the  New  Orleans  Exposition. 

He  was  president  of  the  Constitutional  Convention 
of  1884,  and  of  the  second  in  1889,  in  which  year  Mon- 
tana was  admitted  to  Statehood,  largely  through  his  ef- 
forts, though  the  previous  year  he  had  been  defeated 
for  Congress  on  the  Democratic  ticket.  In  1890  he  was 
elected  to  the  United  States  Senate,  but,  through  the 
machinations  of  powerful  political  opponents,  including 
Marcus  Daly,  he  was  unseated,  the  Senate  rejecting  his 


74  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

credentials.  He  was  again  elected  Senator  in  1899, 
but  his  election  was  declared  void  by  a  Senate  Com- 
mittee, so  lie  resigned,  submitting  the  matter  to  the  peo- 
ple of  his  State.  In  1901,  he  was  reflected  for  the 
term  of  six  years  and  at  last  took  his  seat. 

Senator  Clark's  first  wife,  who  had  been  a  boyhood 
sweetheart  of  his  Connellsville  days,  died  in  189 3 ; 
and  the  present  Mrs.  Clark  was  formerly  Miss  Anna 
E.  Chapelle,  of  Butte.  There  is  quite  a  romance 
woven  around  this  second  marriage,  which  would  never 
have  come  about  but  for  the  Copper  King's  passion  for 
music. 

Anna's  father,  Dr.  Theophilus  La  Chapelle,  came 
from  Montreal  to  Butte  to  better,  first  his  health  —  for 
he  had  consumption  —  and  then  his  fortunes.  He  soon 
died,  however,  leaving  his  family  almost  destitute.  Of 
his  children,  Anna,  a  very  beautiful  and  highly  talented 
young  girl,  was  his  favorite,  and,  on  his  death-bed,  when 
he  confided  his  family  to  the  Copper  King's  care,  he 
laid  special  stress  upon  her  wonderful  talent  for  music, 
and  deplored  not  being  able  to  gratify  her  musical  ambi- 
tions. The  Senator  agreed  to  look  after  his  wife  and 
children,  and  did.  Anna  was  sent  to  the  Boston  Con- 
servatory, where  she  shortly  developed  unusual  musical 
talent,  especially  for  the  harp.  He  then  sent  her  abroad 
to  study  under  the  best  masters.  For  a  few  years,  in 
Paris,  she  lived  with  one  of  the  Senator's  widowed 
sisters,  and  was  very  assiduous  in  her  studies.  By 
1899,  her  fame  as  a  harpist  was  spreading  in  artistic 
circles,  and  she  received  flattering  offers  to  go  on  the 
stage.  But  the  Senator  wanted  her  to  study  another 


WILLIAM  ANDEEWS  CLAEK          75 

year,  so  sent  her  to  other  great  European  musical  cen- 
ters and  engaged  special  teachers  for  her. 

Meanwhile,  his  fatherly  feeling  was  changing  to  love 
and,  in  1901,  he  married  his  young  French-Canadian 
protegee  at  a  small  hamlet  near  Marseilles,  France. 
For  a  while  they  lived  at  a  retreat  in  the  Pyrenees 
kept  by  Benedictine  monks,  and  then  in  a  magnificent 
villa  at  Cape  Matifou  in  the  Bay  of  Algiers. 

Late  in  the  year  the  Senator  and  his  beautiful  bride 
returned  to  the  .United  States,  where,  on  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York,  he  built  for  her  what  is  probably  the  finest 
private  residence  in  America,  if  not  in  the  world. 

This  wonderful  nine-story  house,  a  mass  of  comfort 
and  luxury,  cost  $10,000,000  simply  to  build.  What 
its  furnishings,  fittings,  art  work  and  art  objects  cost 
in  addition,  no  one  can  even  guess  —  maybe  another 
ten,  maybe  another  twenty  millions.  For  four 
rugs  Senator  Clark  paid  $250,000,  and  he  has  paid 
huge  sums  for  oil  paintings,  and  then  there  are  the 
ceilings  from  famous  European  palaces,  the  bronzes, 
the  library,  the  organ,  Turkish  baths,  swimming  pool, 
etc. 

To  build  this  house,  he  bought  no  less  than  six  indus- 
trial plants,  including  granite  quarries;  and  one  mil- 
lion pounds  of  bronze  were  used  in  the  interior. 

His  art  treasures  include  wonderful  oil  paintings, 
tapestries,  statuary  and  bronzes,  which  he  values  very 
highly,  but  what  he  takes  the  most  pride  in  is  his  price- 
less collection  of  XVIth  century  Persian  carpets,  of 
which  he  has  forty-five  examples  out  of  only  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  in  existence. 


76  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

Senator  Clark  was  once  asked  to  tell  a  boy  how  he 
could  get  on  in  the  world  —  succeed  in  life. 

"  First,"  he  said,  "  carefully  determine  upon  an  oc- 
cupation or  profession,  which  choice  should  depend  upon 
qualification  and  congeniality  —  for  a  man  must  have 
his  heart  in  his  work  if  he  would  succeed. 

"  The  most  essential  elements  of  success  in  life  are  — 
a  purpose,  increasing  industry,  temperate  habits,  scru- 
pulous regard  for  one's  word,  faithful  performance  of 
every  promise,  perfect  system  in  business  so  as  to  be  in 
close  touch  with  all  details,  putting  nothing  off  until  to- 
morrow, courteous  manners,  a  generous  regard  for  the 
rights  of  others,  and,  above  all,  integrity  which  admits 
of  no  qualification  or  variation. 

"  Then  there  must  be  unflinching  courage  to  meet 
and  overcome  the  difficulties  that  beset  one's  pathway. 

"  If  all  these  qualities  be  not  inherent  they  can  be  and 
must  be  cultivated. 

"  Rather  a  host  of  qualifications,  but  the  boy  to  make 
a  thorough  success  in  life  must  have  them." 

As  Senator  Clark  started  life  a  poor  boy,  with  noth- 
ing, and  earned  every  dollar  he  possesses  by  the  hardest 
kind  of  work  in  a  wild,  unsettled  region  where  the  ut- 
most courage  and  stoicism  were  needed,  not  part  of  the 
time,  but  all  of  the  time,  his  advice  is  worth  pondering. 

All  the  qualities  he  enumerates  Mr.  Clark  himself 
possesses,  coupled  with  unusual  shrewdness,  initiative 
and  enterprise.  "  Nothing  venture,  nothing  have  "  was 
his  motto,  and  there  were  times  in  his  career  when  he 
certainly  took  "  long  chances  " —  but  he  won  out  every 
time.  He  had  the  broad  vision  and  remarkable  opti- 


WILLIAM  ANDBEWS  CLAEK          77 

mism  as  to  the  vast  hidden  natural  resources  of  our 
country  that  have  characterized  the  most  successful 
pioneers  of  the  great  American  West. 

Mr.  Clark  is  a  quiet,  modest  man  and  dislikes  pub- 
licity. He  silently  pursues  the  even  tenor  of  his  way, 
and,  looking  at  him,  it  is  hard  to  associate  him  with 
the  mighty  mining,  smelting,  railroad  and  banking 
enterprises  which  he  controls.  Though  enormously 
wealthy,  he  is  plain,  unassuming  and  democratic  and 
has  an  astonishing  memory  for  names  and  faces.  Busi- 
ness and  society  won't  mix,  in  Mr.  Clark's  opinion,  and 
that  is  why  he  has  never  been  a  "  social  climber." 
When  he  has  entertained,  he  has  sought  his  friends 
among  people  of  artistic  inclinations,  and  lovers  of  art 
have  always  had  free  access  to  his  wonderful  houseful 
of  art  treasures. 

Mr.  Clark's  Western  residence  is  at  Butte,  Montana, 
the  scene  of  his  early  struggles,  and  success.  He  has 
done  a  good  deal  for  the  town,  in  one  way  or  another, 
and  spends  a  great  portion  of  his  time  there. 


WILLIAM  L.  DOUGLAS 

THE  BOY  WHO  PEGGED  SHOES  AND 
BECAME  GOVERNOR 


Photograph  by  I^ouis  Fabian  Bachrach 

WILLIAM    L.    DOUGLAS 


WILLIAM  L.  DOUGLAS 

THE  BOY  WHO  PEGGED  SHOES  AND 
BECAME  GOVERNOR 

THE  career  of  the  Hon.  W.  L.  Douglas,  Captain  of 
Industry,  Mayor,  Senator  and  Governor,  the 
founder  and  President  of  W.  L.  Douglas  Shoe 
Co.,  reads  almost  like  a  romance.  It  is  a  striking  ex- 
ample of  what  thoroughness  and  tenacity  of  purpose 
can  accomplish,  and  a  refutation  of  the  opinion  that 
there  are  no  longer  opportunities  in  the  world  for  young 
men. 

Eew  boys  ever  started  out  in  life  with  less  or  worked 
harder  in  their  boyhood  than  W.  L.  Douglas,  for,  when 
only  five  years  old,  his  father  was  drowned  at  sea,  and 
his  mother  was  left  with  several  children  to  support. 
Born  in  1845,  close  to  historic  Plymouth,  Massachusetts, 
where,  in  1620,  the  Mayflower  Pilgrims  landed,  he  was, 
when  only  seven,  doomed  to  a  life  of  virtual  slavery. 

At  this  tender  age  —  the  age  when  most  children 
are  starting  to  go  to  school  —  W.  L.  Douglas  was 
"  bound  out "  to  his  uncle,  -a  shoemaker,  and  put  to 
work  pegging  shoes.  Pegging  shoes  in  those  days  was 
mighty  hard  work.  There  were  no  machines  to  sew  or 
nail  the  different  parts  —  it  was  hand  work,  work 
usually  done  by  men  or  boys  much  older  than  he.  In 
fact  he  was  so  small  that  he  had  to  stand  on  a  box  to 

81 


82  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

reach,  the  bench  where  certain  parts  of  the  work  were 
done. 

"  Bound  out "  or  "  apprenticeship  "  at  that  time  did 
not  mean  doing  just  what  one  wanted  to  do  or  short 
hours.  It  meant  long  hours  and  the  doing  of  many 
things  that  seemed  to  have  no  hearing  upon  one's  trade 
whatever.  Size  or  age  was  no  exception  to  the  rule 
for  apprentices,  and  part  of  the  work  young  Douglas 
was  called  upon  daily  to  perform  was  to  go  into  the 
near-by  woods  and  gather  fuel  for  two  fires,  besides  peg- 
ging his  usual  quota  of  shoes.  The  storms  and  cold  of 
the  old-fashioned  New  England  winters  made  no  differ- 
ence. This  work  had  to  be  done  and  done  without 
murmuring.  Hard  as  this  may  seem  to  the  High  School 
boy  who  objects  to  arising  in  a  cold  room,  it  taught 
Willy  Douglas  the  value  of  obedience  and  of  doing 
what  he  was  told  to  do,  rightly,  promptly  and  well. 

The  school-house  was  two  miles  distant,  and  at  rare 
intervals,  when  there  were  slack  spells  in  the  work,  he 
was  permitted  to  trudge  to  school  and  learn  what  he 
could  of  the  "  three  R's."  It  is  almost  needless  to  say 
that  he  was  an  apt  pupil  and  improved  his  few  educa- 
tional opportunities  to  the  utmost. 

When  he  was  eleven  years  old  he  returned  to  his 
mother  because  of  ill  usage.  The  following  spring  his 
mother  made  another  agreement  binding  him  out  to 
his  uncle.  This  agreement  was  to  the  effect  that  for 
young  Douglas7  labor  at  shoemaking  the  uncle  was  to 
finish  teaching  him  the  trade,  board  and  clothe  him, 
permitting  him  to  attend  school  in  season  and  pay  him 
$5.00  a  month.  Here  he  stayed  four  years,  but  as  this 


HON.  W.  L.  DOUGLAS  83 

agreement  was  verbal  the  uncle  evidently  did  not  con- 
sider it  binding,  and  all  the  wages  he  received  during 
this  period  was  $10.00.  Many  boys  and  young  men 
who  are  working  for  several  times  more  a  week  than 
he  was  to  receive  in  a  month  and  who  think  that  there 
is  no  chance  in  the  world  for  a  boy,  should  bear  in 
mind  that  tenacity  of  purpose,  obedience  to  superiors 
and  attention  to  details  will  send  them  up  the  ladder  of 
success  just  as  it  did  him,  if  they  will  persevere.  He 
wanted  to  be  a  master  craftsman,  and  the  years  that  it 
took  to  accomplish  this  ambition  were  not  considered. 
His  eye  was  on  the  goal,  with  the  result  that  at  the 
end  of  this  time  he  was  master  of  everything  that  his 
uncle  could  teach  him  about  shoemaking. 

In  spite  of  his  skill  -at  his  chosen  craft  and  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  full-fledged  journeyman  shoemaker,  hav- 
ing received  only  $10.00  the  past  four  years,  and  not 
finding  an  opportunity  to  work  at  his  trade  near  his 
home,  he  decided  to  try  a  cotton  mill  at  Plymouth  for  a 
while  at  the  then  large  wage  of  thirty-three  cents  a  day. 

While  working  in  this  mill  he  had  the  misfortune  to 
break  his  leg,  and  as  he  could  not  work  he  attended 
school,  bobbing  on  crutches  two  miles  each  way.  And 
glad  he  was  to  have  a  chance  to  go  to  school  again,  for 
he  knew,  better  than  many  boys,  the  value  of  an  educa- 
tion, however  limited. 

This  brief  experience  in  the  cotton  mill  and  some 
time  spent  doing  chores  for  a  farmer  in  the  fall  of 
1861  for  the  privilege  of  schooling,  board  and  clothes 
are  the  only  periods  of  his  long  and  busy  life  that 
have  not  been  spent  in  the  shoe  industry. 


84  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

Having  learned  the  trade  of  making  fine  shoes,  the 
desire  of  mastering  completely  every  branch  of  shoemak- 
ing  led  him  to  work  in  Hopkinton,  Mass.,  making  men's 
heavy  boots.  Later  he  went  to  South  Braintree,  where 
he  worked  with  the  famous  old-time  bootmaker,  Ansel 
Thayer.  For  three  years  he  was  an  apt  pupil  of  this 
master  craftsman.  Although  possessed  with  the  ambi- 
tion to  be  a  master  shoemaker  the  desire  for  an  educa- 
tion was  still  strong  and  while  working  here  he  attended 
private  evening  school,  paying  for  the  same  out  of  his 
slender  wages. 

The  opening  up  of  the  West  at  the  close  of  the  war 
appealed  to  him  as  an  opportunity  of  seeing  a  little  of 
the  country  and  at  the  same  time  of  plying  his  trade. 
Accordingly,  he  journeyed  across  the  plains  and  lo- 
cated in  the  town  of  Black  Hawk  and,  associating  him- 
self with  Zephaniah  Myers,  famous  as  the  best  boot- 
maker in  the  West,  continued  his  chosen  vocation  of 
shoemaking.  While  associated  with  Myers  he  learned 
the  two  things  necessary  to  make  him  an  all  ' round 
shoemaker  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  He  already 
knew  how  to  make  shoes.  Now  he  learned  how  to  de- 
sign or  draft  and  cut,  also  how  to  fit  them,  and  was  soon 
known  for  miles  around  for  the  excellency  of  his  work. 

His  fame  spread  to  Golden  City,  Colorado,  where 
Alfred  Studley,  an  old  Massachusetts  shoemaker,  was 
located.  He  sent  for  young  Douglas  and  offered  him  a 
partnership  in  his  store.  In  those  days  there  were 
plenty  of  pesky  Indians  in  this  section  of  the  West,  as 
may  be  inferred  from  the  following  advertisement  put 
out  by  the  new  firm. 


HON.  W.  L.  DOUGLAS  85 

INDIANS ! 

If  you  wish  to  run  away  from  the  Indians 
don't  go  barefoot,  but  buy  a  pair  of 

BOOTS  OR  SHOES 

OF  STUDLEY  &  DOUGLAS 

But  though  convinced  of  the  value  of  retail  expe- 
rience and  although  the  venture  was  a  success,  he  pre- 
ferred the  manufacturing  end  of  the  business  and  sold 
out  his  interest. 

"  Any  one  can  sell  shoes,"  he  explained  to  his  part- 
ner, "  but  I  know  how  to  make  them.  I'm  going  back 
home  and  try  to  save  some  money  to  start  a  factory." 

Studley  laughed  at  him,  but  Douglas  went  back  to 
Massachusetts. 

At  this  time  making  shoes  by  machinery  was  com- 
ing more  and  more  into  vogue,  and  from  1870  to  1875  he 
superintended  the  Porter  and  Southworth  factory  at 
North  Bridgewater  (now  Brockton)  and  familiarized 
himself  with  all  the  -then  known  appliances  for  making 
shoes  by  machinery. 

The  year  1876  saw  the  beginning  of  the  new  mam- 
moth shoe  industry  which  bears  the  name  of  W.  L. 
Douglas.  Although  thirty-one  years  old  and  married 
he  had  faith  enough  in  his  ability  to  give  up  working 
for  others  at  a  stated  salary  and  start  manufacturing 
in  a  thirty-  by  sixty-foot  room  in  the  building  previously 
occupied  by  Porter  &  Southworth.  His  capital  con- 
sisted of  eight  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars  borrowed 
money  and  a  firm  belief  that  he  could  make  a  success 
of  shoe  manufacturing.  His  output  was  forty-eight 


86  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

pairs  a  day  and  five  employees  constituted  his  whole 
working  force. 

This  is  the  kind  of  nerve  W.  L.  Douglas  had ! 

The  growth  of  the  business  from  its  start  in  1876  to 
the  present  time  is  an  astounding  and  romantic  record 
of  American  enterprise  and  shows  what  thorough  train- 
ing, strict  attention  to  business,  honesty  of  purpose  and 
a  mastery  of  details  can  accomplish.  At  the  start  of 
his  business  venture  Mr.  Douglas  was  not  only  his  own 
buyer,  cutter  and  salesman,  he  was  at  times  his  own 
expressman  as  well.  Old  Brockton  residents  tell  of 
seeing  Mr.  Douglas  coming  from  Boston  with  rolls  of 
leather  under  his  arm. 

Young  men  who  want  to  succeed  in  life,  but  who 
watch  the  clock  for  fear  they'll  work  a  minute  more 
than  their  regular  hours,  cannot  do  better  than  to  make 
note  of  the  fact  that  in  those  days  Mr.  Douglas  fre- 
quently worked  eighteen  and  twenty  hours  a  day;  re- 
turning to  the  factory  many  a  night,  after  days  spent  in 
Boston  buying  leather  and  selling  shoes,  sorting  and 
cutting  leather  and  laying  out  the  next  day's  work  for 
his  employees. 

To  this  more  than  any  other  cause  Mr.  Douglas  attri- 
butes his  success.  It  was  only  by  working  practically 
day  and  night  during  these  early  years  that  he  got  his 
start  and  laid  the  foundation  for  his  large  fortune. 

As  a  result  of  careful  attention  to  details  and  hard 
work,  the  business  grew  to  its  present  huge  size. 

Some  idea  of  the  present  magnitude  of  the  business 
Mr.  Douglas  started  in  to  learn  at  seven  years  of  age 
may  be  had  from  the  following  figures: 


HON.  W.  L.  DOUGLAS  87 

The  business  now  employs  more  than  four  thousand 
operatives  — 

Uses  the  skins  (hides)  of  one  million  eight  hundred 
thousand  animals  — 

More  than  one  million  yards  of  cloth  — 

Four  thousand  tons  of  sole  leather  — 

And  fifteen  thousand  miles  of  flax  thread  annually. 

A  year's  output,  if  placed  heel  to  toe,  would  reach 
from  Boston  to  Omaha;  if  piled  one  pair  on  another 
would  make  a  pile  two  hundred  and  fifty-six  miles  high, 
and  if  packed  in  cases  and  shipped  by  rail  at  one  time 
would  take  five  hundred  and  seventy-two  cars  and  make 
a  train  six  and  one-half  miles  in  length ! 

From  the  small  beginning  outlined  above,  the  Doug- 
las business  has  grown  to  tremendous  size,  and  is  a  shin- 
ing example  of  what  thoroughness,  honesty  and  tenacity 
of  purpose  can  accomplish. 

Although  an  extremely  busy  man,  Mr.  Douglas  found 
time  to  take  an  active  interest  in  local  and  state  affairs 
and  has  served  his  city,  Brockton,  as  councilman  and 
Mayor  and  represented  her  in  both  the  Massachusetts 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives.  He  also  has 
had  the  honor  of  being  elected  Governor  of  the  old 
Bay  State. 

Because  of  his  early  training  and  rise  from  the 
ranks,  W.  L.  Douglas  has  always  been  a  champion  of 
and  exemplar  of  fair  treatment  for  employees,  and  la- 
bor troubles,  strikes  and  lockouts  have  seldom  occurred 
in  his  factory,  because  of  his  willingness  to  discuss 
and  arbitrate  all  matters  in  dispute. 

It  is  due  to  Mr.  Douglas'  being  able  to  see  matters 


88  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

from  the  workingman's  standpoint  that  two  of  Massa- 
chusetts' best  laws  relating  to  the  welfare  of  workers 
are  on  the  statute  books. 

While  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  he 
was  the  author  of  the  state  Weekly  Payment  Law,  which 
directs  that  employees  at  manual  trades  shall  receive 
their  wages  within  each  calendar  week.  In  1886  while 
a  member  of  the  state  Senate  he  introduced  the  bill  "  to 
provide  for  the  settlement  of  differences  between  em- 
ployers and  their  employees."  This  bill  was  passed 
and  was  the  immediate  cause  of  founding,  by  legislative 
act,  the  State  Board  of  Arbitration  and  Conciliation, 
one  of  the  most  effective  institutions  in  existence  for 
reaching  and  settling  labor  troubles.  Following  the 
fair  and  manly  course  of  considering  the  well-being  of 
his  helpers,  Mr.  Douglas  has  always  maintained  the  most 
cordial  relations  and  enjoys  their  confidence  and  re- 
spect. 

As  Massachusetts  was  the  first  state  to  enact  an  ar- 
bitration and  conciliation  bill  and  establish  a  slate 
board  to  carry  out  its  features,  Mr.  Douglas  enjoys  the 
distinction  of  being  the  father  of  this  legislation  in  the 
United  States. 

Mr.  Douglas  is  a  humane  man,  and,  as  accidents  will 
happen,  he  long  ago  installed  a  medical  and  surgical 
department  at  his  plant.  The  surgical  department  of 
his  company  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  finest  and  best 
equipped  of  its  kind  in  manufacturing  circles  in 
America. 

Such  is  a  brief  sketch  of  this  New  England  Captain 
of  Industry  who,  as  a  poor  boy,  was  put  to  work  pegging 


HON.  W.  L.  DOUGLAS  89 

shoes  at  the  age  of  seven  and  who  rose  from  the  ranks 
until  he  was  president  of  a  great  corporation  and  a  pub- 
lic official. 

Known  and  respected  the  world  over  and  honored 
by  city  and  state,  ex-Governor  Douglas  at  seventy-four 
may  still  be  found  -at  his  desk  directing  the  business  of 
one  of  the  largest  fine-shoe  manufactories  in  the  world. 

His  career  is  certainly  one  of  inspiration  to  the  youth 
of  the  world  —  particularly  Young  America.  For  in 
this  land  there  are  countless  opportunities  for  young 
men  of  ambition,  thoroughness  and  honesty.  What  has 
been  done  can  be  done  again  if  one  only  tries. 


JAMES  BUCHANAN  DUKE 

AMEKICAN  TOBACCO  AND  CIGARETTE 
KING 


JAMES    BUCHANAN   DUKE 


JAMES  BUCHANAN  DUKE 

AMEBICAN  TOBACCO  AND  CIGARETTE 
KING 

MANY  great  businesses  have  been  built  up  from 
very  small  amounts  of  money  —  a  few  thou- 
sands or  a  few  hundreds  of  dollars.  Some 
have  been  built  up  on  a  capital  less  than  one  hundred 
dollars.  The  man  who  is  bright  enough  to  recognize 
and  seize  a  good  opportunity,  or  who  has  a  good  idea 
and  sufficient  faith  in  it  and  industry  to  work  or  de- 
velop it,  seldom  needs  much,  if  any,  capital.  The  fa- 
mous Steel  King  and  philanthropist,  Andrew  Carnegie, 
the  Scotch  bobbin-boy,  not  long  after  coming  to  Amer- 
ica borrowed  $5,000  with  which,  in  less  than  half  a 
life-time,  he  built  up  the  biggest  steel  manufacturing 
works  on  earth,  selling  out  eventually  for  a  sum  so  vast 
that  if  divided  up  among  the  population  of  the  world, 
each  inhabitant  —  man,  woman  and  child  —  would  get 
twenty-five  cents!  But  this  story  is  about  a  business 
now  representing  an  invested  capital  of  half  a  billion 
dollars,  that  was  built  up  on  an  original  capital  of  fifty 
cents. 

Washington  Duke  was  the  father  of  the  Tobacco  King, 
James  Buchanan  Duke,  now  the  head  of  the  British- 
American  Tobacco  Company. 

When  the  Civil  War  broke  out  Washington  Duke, 
whose  ancestry  was  Down  Eastern,  was  living  very  sim- 

93 


94  FAMOUS  LEADEBS  OF  INDUSTBY 

ply  on  his  three-hundred-acre  farm  near  Durham,  Nouth 
Carolina.  Selling  his  stock  and  crops,  taking  his  pay 
in  tobacco,  he  sent  his-  wife  and  children  to  a  relative's, 
and  for  two  years  served  in  the  Confederate  Navy.  The 
war  over,  Washington  Duke  found  himself  at  New  Bern, 
stranded.  His  only  possession  was  a  five-dollar  Con- 
federate note.  As  he  was  tramping  the  one  hundred 
and  thirty-five  miles  to  his  ruined  farm,  he  met  a  Union 
soldier  to  whom  he  sold  his  five-dollar  note,  as  a  sou- 
venir, for  fifty  cents: 

When  he  reached  the  farmhouse  he  found  that  his 
tobacco  —  his  sole  capital  —  had  been  looted  by  the 
soldiery ;  so  all  he  had  with  which  to  begin  life  again 
was  the  fifty-cent  piece  the  Union  soldier  had  given 
him.  What  he  bewailed  as  a  misfortune,  however, 
turned  out  before  long  to  -be  a  big  piece  of  luck;  for 
when  the  Northern  soldiers  reached  home,  and  had 
smoked  up  the  looted  tobacco,  they  wanted  some  more, 
and  began  to  write  to  the  postmaster  at  Durham  for  ad- 
ditional supplies  of  the  same  delicious  kind  they  had 
found  on  the  farm  close  by. 

Washington  Duke  was  thankful  indeed  to  receive  the 
small  sums  accompanying  these  occasional  orders,  and 
he  began  to  wake  up  to  the  unusual  qualities  of  North 
Carolina  tobacco.  He  filled  all  these  Northern  orders 
with  great  alacrity,  and,  buying  two  blind  mules  and  a 
wagon,  on  credit,  he  went  about  the  State  peddling 
his  tobacco.  Then  his  three  sons,  especially  James,  be- 
gan to  help  him,  and  between  them  they  planted,  gath- 
ered the  crop,  dried  it  over  beechwood  fires,  and  shred- 
ded or  granulated  it  with  their  flails  in  the  barn.  They 


JAMES  BUCHANAN  DUKE  95 

were  all  big,  strong  boys,  full  of  energy  and  ambition, 
sharpened  by  fear  of  the  "  wolf." 

Their  petty  dealings  soon  grew  into  something  like  a 
business,  though  a  very  small  one,  and  they  found  them- 
selves hampered  by  lack  of  railroad  facilities,  so  they 
moved  to  Durham,  in  1870,  buying  an  old  two-story 
building  as  warehouse  and  residence  combined.  By 
1874  they  were  able  to  build  a  small  factory. 

Washington  Duke's  youngest  son,  James  Buchanan, 
though  under  twenty,  was  the  hustling,  aggressive  busi- 
ness getter  of  the  firm.  His  father  and  brothers  grew 
and  manufactured  the  wonderfully  sweet  and  fragrant 
Carolina  tobacco,  but  it  was  James  who  sold  it.  James, 
later  the  organizer  and  head  of  the  American  Tobacco 
Company,  was  outside  man,  and  his  splendid  physique 
and  tireless  energy  brought  him  great  success  as  a  sales- 
man. Jamming  his  grip  so  full  of  samples  as  to  leave 
scarcely  any  room  for  clothes,  he  rushed  about  the  coun- 
try, impatient  of  every  delay  of  trains  or  other  obsta- 
cles, placing  "  Durham  "  tobacco,  as  it  was  called,  in 
cigar  stores  countrywide.  There  was  literally  no  re- 
sisting the  young  man's  energetic,  almost  fierce,  appeal, 
and  the  most  hidebound  dealers  succumbed  to  Jimmy's 
onslaught,  and  he  booked  their  orders. 

His  father  and  brothers  were  dumbfounded  at  the 
boy's  terrific  industry  and  growing  success.  He  was 
working  day  and  night  on  the  road,  taking  no  pleasure 
and  very  little  sleep,  and  sending  in  orders  in  increas- 
ing volume  for  "  Duke's  Durham."  The  business  was 
growing  fast,  and  Jimmy,  the  last  born,  was  rapidly  be- 
coming its  head  and  front  —  its  soul. 


96  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

James  B.  Duke,  almost  as  soon  as  he  started  out  to 
sell  tobacco,  came  to  a  shrewd  realization  of  the  value 
of  advertising.  As  he  was  a  born  trader  and  organizer 
he  presently  hit  upon  clever  ideas  for  advertising  and 
increasing  the  sale  of  Duke  tobacco.  Some  of  his 
schemes  were  startling  to  the  conservative,  and  almost 
savored  of  "  plunging."  But  the  more  he  spent  in  these 
clever  and  revolutionary  publicity  schemes  the  more  he 
made.  Advertising  of  the  kind  that  James  B.  Duke 
planned,  paid. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  young  man  who  was  more 
absorbed  in  his  business  —  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  all 
else  —  than  James  Duke.  It  was  this  single-minded- 
ness  that  led  him  to  world-wide  fame  and  a  big  fortune. 
He  had  one  idea  —  that  of  selling  Duke  Brothers'  to- 
bacco —  and  he  stuck  to  it  with  even  more  than  bull- 
dog tenacity.  Nothing  outside  his  business  —  selling 
Duke's  tobacco  —  interested  him. 

Fortunately  he  had  a  constitution  of  iron  upon  which 
his  habit  of  excessive  work  had  no  effect,  and,  besides, 
he  knew  all  about  tobacco,  for  when  only  nine  years 
old,  on  his  father's  return  from  the  war  to  his  ruined 
farm,  he  had  to  tend  the  tobacco  plants  in  the  fields  and 
help  rid  the  farm  of  weeds  and  rubbish  accumulated 
during  its  abandonment.  He  helped  out,  too,  in  the 
curing  shed,  learning  while  a  boy  the  secret  of  curing 
the  leaf  so  as  to  give  to  it  its  rich  golden-yellow  color 
and  delicious  flavor. 

Tending  the  plants,  pulling  up  the  weeds,  cleaning 
up  the  farm  of  the  damage  and  rubbish  left  by  Sher- 
man's boys,  was  hard  work  for  the  youngster.  But  the 


JAMES  BUCHANAN  DUKE  97 

whole  family  had  to  work,  and,  at  the  end  of  the  year, 
the  result  was  a  crop  from  which  they  realized  only 
forty  dollars! 

Nevertheless,  insignificant  as  the  reward  of  all  their 
toil  was  for  this  first  year  after  the  war,  it  filled  the 
three  brothers  and  their  father  with  renewed  courage, 
and  it  was  the  foundation  of  what  grew  to  be  one  of 
the  largest  businesses  in  the  world.  This  bright,  mild 
and  fragrant  tobacco,  of  which  the  Northerners  were  so 
fond,  became  the  basis  of  an  industry  bringing  in  some 
fifty  millions  of  dollars  annually. 

Other  farmers  near  Durham  now  began  to  raise  to- 
bacco and  the  Dukes  shrewdly  gave  up  its  cultivation 
themselves,  devoting  their  whole  time  to  curing  and 
selling  the  leaf.  Soon  they  had  a  small  factory  and 
were  employing  thirty-five  men.  Their  profit  the  first 
year  was  $7,000. 

At  this  time  James  was  only  eighteen,  and  had  not 
been  inside  a  school  since  he  was  nine.  He  was  a 
bright,  quick-witted  boy,  strong,  healthy  and  fond  of 
work.  So  his  father  gave  him  his  choice  of  a  college 
education  or  a  partnership.  The  boy  didn't  waste  much 
time  in  pondering  this  proposition.  He  could  read  and 
write  and  figure,  could  put  up  a  pretty  good  business 
talk,  and  he  knew  all  about  tobacco,  for  from  childhood 
up  he  had  been  playing  or  working  among  the  tobacco 
plants  or  in  the  little  log  hut  where  the  family  "  cured  " 
the  golden  leaf. 

He  instantly  decided  to  take  the  partnership  and  con- 
tinue at  work,  for  his  consuming  desire  was  to  make  a 
fortune. 


98  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

Later  his  father  retired,  the  firm  became  Duke  Broth- 
ers, and  in  five  years  their  plant  covered  ten  acres  of 
ground,  becoming  one  of  the  most  important  industrial 
concerns  in  North  Carolina.  This  prosperity  and  ex- 
pansion were  due  to  James  B.  Duke's  extraordinary  en- 
ergy, ambition  and  business  acumen.  No  matter  how 
much  profit  the  firm  made,  he  insisted  upon  nearly  all 
of  it  being  put  back  into  the  business.  The  partners 
were  allowed  to  draw  only  $2,000  a  year  each.  Long 
after  prosperity  came  to  James  B.  Duke  he  continued 
to  work  as  hard  as  any  of  his  "  drummers,"  living 
quite  simply  and  economically  in  a  boarding-house. 

In  1881  the  Dukes  began  the  manufacture  of  the  now 
so  familiar  paper-covered  cigarettes,  and  about  1884 
James  B.  Duke  came  to  New  York  to  see  if  he  couldn't 
solve  some  problems  in  connection  with  their  production 
and  sale.  Cigarettes  were  hand-made  then,  and  the  cost 
of  manufacture  stood  in  the  way  of  their  profitable 
marketing.  Duke  set  some  inventors  to  work,  and  a 
somewhat  crude  machine  was  made,  but  its  work  was 
imperfect.  Then,  although  bankruptcy  was  predicted 
for  him,  he  gave  the  machine  to  some  mechanical  ex- 
perts to  experiment  with,  at  last  succeeding  in  getting 
a  machine  that  would  make  thousands  of  perfect  cig- 
arettes in  a  day.  When  Duke  began  to  sell  his  ma- 
chine-made cigarettes,  he  had  all  the  other  manufac- 
turers beaten,  and  there  was  soon  a  rush  on  their  part 
for  similar  machines. 

About  this  time  one  of  his  friends  asked  him  how 
much  he  had  made. 

"  Some  $2,000,000,"  he  replied. 


JAMES  BUCHANAN  DUKE  99 

"  And  how  much  of  that  have  you  got  left  ? "  the 
friend  asked. 

"  A  few  thousands  —  I've  spent  the  rest  in  planning 
for  what  I'm  going  to  make  in  the  near  future/7  was 
Duke's  reply. 

This  was  where  James  B.  Duke  displayed  his  finan- 
cial and  business  genius.  With  amazing  foresight,  he 
saw  a  wonderful  future  for  his  business.  It  was  still 
in  its  infancy,  and  he  saw  the  time  when  Duke's  to- 
bacco and  cigarettes  would  be  on  sale  the  world  over. 
And  this  is  why  he  always  insisted  upon  the  profits  being 
put  back  into  the  young  but  fast-growing  business.  So, 
still  living  quite  simply,  spending  nothing  on  himself, 
he  poured  his  large  profits  back  into  his  business,  espe- 
cially into  advertising.  He  said  once: 

"  I've  spent  more  money  in  advertising  than  any 
other  living  man.  .  .  .  I've  given  out  fifty  million  dol- 
lars to  make  my  goods  known." 

The  quick  seizing  of  opportunities  was  Mr.  Duke's 
most  striking  characteristic.  It  was  a  young  Virginian, 
as  the  result  of  a  chance  remark,  that  set  to  work  and, 
in  a  year,  when  only  twenty-one,  invented  the  cigarette- 
making  machine,  which  Mr.  Duke  so  promptly  snapped 
up  and  improved.  It  took  courage  as  well  as  cash  to 
grasp  this  opportunity,  for  everybody  predicted  fail- 
ure. 

Mr.  Duke  grasped  another  opportunity  in  the  for- 
eign field  when  he  invaded  England  with  his  cigarettes, 
spending  money  like  water  in  advertising  and  other 
very  sensational  methods  of  competition.  He  met  with 
a  long  and  stubborn  resistance,  his  most  formidable 


100     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTEY 

rival  offering  to  divide  .among  retailers  offering  their 
tobacco  for  sale,  a  bonus  of  $200,000  every  six  months. 

Mr.  Duke,  whose  English  branch  was  known  as 
"  Ogden's  Limited,77  immediately  announced  that  he 
would  divide  the  entire  profits  every  six  months,  plus 
$500,000,  among  the  retailers,  and  that  this  would  con- 
tinue for  four  years ! 

The  British  tobacco  men  saw  nothing  for  it  but  to 
buy  out  the  Duke  intruder,  and  this  they  did  at  a  price 
that  made  people  gasp.  Meanwhile  the  public  had  been 
benefiting  greatly  by  the  cigarette  war,  getting  their 
smokes  at  an  absurdly  low  price.  And,  needless  to  say, 
Duke's  "  Cameos,77  in  their  dainty  little  decorated  card- 
board boxes,  were  all  the  rage. 

This  stiff  cardboard  box  for  cigarettes  was  another  in- 
ventive-opportunity whose  value  was  instantly  realized 
by  Mr.  Duke.  As  soon  as  he  saw  it  he  ordered  fifty 
thousand  and  within  a  few  months  was  buying  them 
in  million  lots.  Previously  the  cigarettes  had  been 
wrapped  loosely  in  packages,  and  were  easily  crumpled 
and  broken  in  the  pocket. 

When,  in  1890,  the  Duke  firm  of  Durham,  North 
Carolina,  joined  the  consolidation  of  tobacco  companies 
they  received  $7,500,000  for  their  business,  and  the 
very  first  year  it  earned  twenty  per  cent,  on  its  pur- 
chase price.  As  a  matter  of  course  James  B.  Duke, 
once  the  bare-legged  nine-year-old  boy  who  tended  to- 
bacco plants  on  his  father's  farm,  was  chosen  to  be  the 
president  of  the  consolidation  called  the  American  To- 
bacco Company,  with  its  many  millions  of  capital.  JSFo 
better  man  in  the  world,  in  the  opinion  of  the  owners 


JAMES  BUCHANAN  J>TJKE          101 

and  directors  of  the  new  corporation,  could  l)e  found 
than  "  Buck  "  Duke. 

A  few  years  ago  Mr.  Duke  bought  some  land  at 
Somerville,  New  Jersey,  and  with  characteristic  energy 
and  originality  set  to  work  and  built  a  magnificent  man- 
sion and  surrounding  estate  costing  $15,000,000. 

The  land  was  flat,  Mr.  Duke  noticed.  "  I  want  a 
mountain !  "  he  exclaimed. 

This  was  considered  a  good  joke.  There  were  no 
mountains  nearer  than  a  great  many  miles,  and  it  was 
declared  impossible  to  remove  any  of  them  to  Somer- 
ville. 

"  I'm  serious,"  he  repeated,  "  I  want  a  mountain !  " 

And  a  mountain  he  got!  Little  by  little  the  moun- 
tain rose  from  the  plain,  getting  larger  and  larger  from 
week  to  week,  when  it  was  finished  rising  one  hundred 
feet  and  covering  about  twenty-five  acres. 

Then  he  wanted  lakes  to  go  with  the  mountain,  and 
got  them,  too. 

In  addition  to  this  superb  country  estate  Mr.  Duke 
bought  a  fine  residence  on  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 

"  The  one  straight  road  to  success,"  Mr.  Duke  says, 
"  is  to  learn  to  love  your  business  .  .  .  the  man  who 
works  only  because  he  is  paid  to  work  cannot  compete 
with  the  man  who  works  because  he  would  sooner  do 
that  than  anything  else.  It  is  the  practical  secret  of 
success." 

James  Buchanan  Duke  has  done  more  for  the  Ameri- 
can tobacco  industry  than  probably  any  other  man. 
At  sixty-three  years  of  age,  he  is  still  the  Tobacco 
King  of  the  American  continent. 


GEORGE  EASTMAN 

WHO  INVENTED  THE  KODAK  AND 
POPULAKIZED  PHOTOGKAPHY. 


GEORGE   EASTMAN 


GEORGE  EASTMAN 

WHO  INVENTED  THE  KODAK  AND 
POPULAKIZED  PHOTOGKAPHY 

AN  astounding  story  of  toil,  trouble  and  disap- 
pointment leading  up  to  final  dazzling  success 
is  that  of  the  poor  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  boy,  George 
Eastman,  who  invented  the  Kodak,  and  whose  name  and 
fame  now  fill  the  earth.     Starting  his   business  life 
without  a  cent,  at  a  wage  of  $3  a  week,  George  East- 
man's factories  now  cover  many  acres,  and  in  his  pocket 
jingle  millions  of  dollars. 

Wonderful  pluck,  perseverance  and  gumption  had 
this  Eochester  boy,  and  rich  was  his  recompense;  but 
his  best  reward  is  in  the  delight,  pleasure  and  utility 
his  photographic  invention  brings  to  countless  millions 
of  human  beings. 

George  Eastman  was  born  at  Waterville,  Oneida 
County,  N.  Y.,  on  July  12,  1854,  and  a  year  or  two 
afterwards  his  father  located  in  Rochester,  where  he 
founded  a  commercial  college.  He  was  one  of  the 
pioneers  in  the  idea  that  youths  should  have  practical 
training  in  commercial  methods  before  entering  busi- 
ness life.  In  1860,  however,  when  George  was  only 
six,  he  died,  leaving  nothing,  and  the  boy's  mother  had 
great  difficulty  in  providing  for  his  keep  and  school- 
ing. 

105 


106  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

However,  lie  was  able  to  attend  public  schools  until 
he  was  fourteen,  when  he  started  in  as  office  boy  in  an 
insurance  office  at  $3  a  week.  It  seemed  "  big  money  " 
to  the  poor  boy  who  was  so  well  acquainted  with  hard, 
grinding  poverty;  but  the  early  lesson  had  a  salutary 
effect,  for  the  boy  stood  in  such  dread  of  the  "  wolf  " 
that  he  determined  to  save  all  the  money  he  could.  At 
the  end  of  his  first  year  of  work,  although  he  had 
given  his  mother  a  good  part  of  his  earnings,  he  had 
managed  to  save  and  put  in  the  bank  the  sum  of  $37.50. 

George,  as  well  as  being  thrifty,  was  industrious  and 
diligent  in  his  work,  and  before  long  was  getting  $600 
a  year.  His  employer  appreciated  his  abilities,  and 
knew  that  he  was  worth  more  than  he  could  afford  to 
pay  him;  so  he  helped  him  to  get  a  position  as  book- 
keeper in  the  Rochester  Savings  Bank  at  a  salary  of 
$1,000  a  year. 

Then  followed  several  years  of  hard,  confining  office 
work  for  young  Eastman,  and,  his  health  not  being  very 
good,  it  was  decided  to  give  him  a  vacation.  At  that 
time  Santo  Domingo  was  greatly  talked  about,  for  the 
reason  that  Uncle  Sam  was  thinking  of  establishing  a 
naval  base  there.  It  was  a  little-known  and  far-off 
country  in  those  days,  so  George  decided  to  spend  his 
holiday  there. 

He  was  telling  a  man  he  knew,  an  engineer,  about 
his  contemplated  trip,  when  his  friend  said: 

"  Why  don't  you  take  a  photographic  outfit  along  ? 
Then  you  can  take  pictures  of  all  the  interesting  places 
and  things  you  see  on  your  trip." 

This  offhand,  random  suggestion  had  a  revolutionary 


GEORGE  EASTMAN  107 

effect  upon  George  Eastman's  life,  ultimately  being  the 
means  of  bringing  him  fame  and  riches. 

The  suggestion  so  deeply  interested  young  Eastman 
•that  he  at  once  started  in  to  learn  all  he  could  about 
photography.  After  he  had  mastered  the  rudiments 
he  bought  a  small  camera,  and  hired  a  photographer  in 
town  to  teach  him  the  wet-plate  process. 

He  had  made  considerable  progress  in  his  new  study 
when  he  was  detailed  by  the  bank  on  some  special  work, 
and  had  to  forego  his  vacation.  By  this  time,  though, 
he  was  so  deeply  interested  in  photography  that,  later 
on,  he  took  a  short  trip  to  Lake  Superior,  taking  his  out- 
fit with  him.  He  succeeded  in  taking  a  number  of  pic- 
tures, but  the  process,  as  it  was  then,  seemed  to  East- 
man slow  and  cumbrous.  On  his  return  home  he  con- 
tinued studying  and  experimenting  and  his  first  in- 
vention in  the  photographic  art  was  a  compact,  easily 
portable  outfit.  Then,  as  he  read  the  photographic 
journals,  he  heard  of  the  discovery  in  England  of  the 
gelatine  dry-plate  process. 

Eastman  became  more  interested  than  ever,  and  went 
on  experimenting,  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  a  large 
business  could  be  done  in  manufacturing  dry-plates,  in- 
stead of  merely  the  materials  needed  in  the  wet  process. 
In  other  words,  in  a  flash  of  intuition,  he  saw  that  if  he 
could  relieve  the  buyer  of  the  necessity  of  handling 
the  raw  materials  —  nitrate  of  silver,  collodion,  and 
the  glass  —  of  having  to  bother  with  a  dark  tent  and 
the  whole  slow,  complicated  and  delicate  process,  he 
would  have  perhaps  a  fortune  in  sight.  He  determined 
to  experiment  on  a  larger  scale  along  the  lines  of  his 


108     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

idea,  which  was  making  photography  available  to  the 
masses.  So,  for  a  few  dollars  a  month,  he  hired  a  room 
for  a  workshop,  getting  a  young  man  to  look  after  it 
during  the  day  —  for  he  was  still  clerking  at  the  bank 

—  doing  the  delicate  chemical  experimental  work  him- 
self at  night. 

Toilful  days  followed  for  Eastman,  and  he  frequently 
worked  all  night  without  taking  off  his  clothes,  some- 
times sleeping  from  Saturday  night  until  Monday  morn- 
ing. His  dry  plates,  however,  were  a  success,  and  a 
demand,  greater  than  he  could  meet,  was  springing  up 
for  Eastman  Dry  Plates. 

The  secret  of  the  superiority  of  his  plates  was  due, 
he  once  said,  to  his  formula.  He  happened  to  hit  upon 
a  very  good  combination  more  or  less  by  luck.  It  was 
necessary  for  him  to  secure  great  sensitiveness  —  which 
only  a  handful  of  men  in  the  whole  world  had  been 
able  to  do  —  and  by  ceaseless,  tireless  experiment, 
George  Eastman  had  discovered  the  secret. 

Mr.  Eastman  now  began  to  sell  his  improved  plates 
to  his  old  teacher,  the  local  photographer,  and  through 
him  secured  another  and  large  customer  in  New  York. 

Now  convinced  of  the  superiority  of  his  plates  to 
anything  of  the  kind  on  the  market,  he  began  to  adver- 
tise them.  Orders  rapidly  poured  in. 

In  1881  he  left  the  bank  and  organized  the  Eastman 
Dry  Plate  Company,  taking  in  an  old  friend,  Henry  A. 
Strong,  as  partner,  and  quarters  were  secured  on  Yought 

—  now  Kodak  —  Street  for  the  infant  manufacturing 
firm. 

Eor  a  while  they  were  very  prosperous,  their  sales 


GEORGE  EASTMAN  109 

reaching  about  $5,000  a  month.  But  when  spring 
came,  wholesalers  or  jobbers  who  had  bought  plates  in 
large  quantities,  keeping  them  in  stock,  through  the 
winter,  began  to  receive  complaints.  The  plates  were 
of  poor  quality  —  no  good  —  so  customers  said. 

Mr.  Eastman  at  once  started  to  investigate,  and  soon 
discovered  that  with  age  the  plates  lost  much  of  their 
sensitiveness.  He  had  to  take  back  from  the  dealers 
every  unsold  plate,  and,  to  crown  all,  he  then  found 
that  his  formula  would  no  longer  work !  He  could  not 
produce  a  single  good  plate  with  it.  It  was  baffling, 
mysterious,  heartbreaking  —  and  it  was  the  same  for- 
mula, too,  that  he  had  used  in  the  beginning. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  call  in  all  his  outstanding 
stock,  and  close  the  factory.  It  looked  like  utter 
ruin.  "  Compared  with  what  I  then  went  through," 
said  Mr.  Eastman  once,  "  all  the  later  troubles  of  my  life 
have  been  as  nothing." 

Adversity,  though  like  the  toad  "  ugly  and  venomous, 
wears  yet  a  precious  jewel  in  his  head,"  and  this  is 
what  Eastman  found.  The  adversity  into  which  he  was 
so  suddenly  plunged  only  served  to  draw  out  his  latent 
qualities  or  talents.  His  determination  and  courage 
increased,  more  plans  and  ideas  came  to  him.  He 
never  lost  hope. 

Then  George  Eastman  suddenly  disappeared. 

Weeks  passed,  but  still  his  factory  was  closed  —  not 
a  wheel  turned.  People  smiled  as  they  went  by. 

Meanwhile  George  Eastman  was  in  England,  prac- 
ticing in  the  factory  of  a  Newcastle  firm  on  a  formula 
he  had  bought  from  them.  After  he  had  thoroughly 


110     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

mastered  it  in  every  detail,  he  hurried  home,  starting 
up  his  plant  without  the  loss  of  a  moment. 

His  plates  were  satisfactory  now,  and  business  be- 
gan to  increase  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Everybody 
wanted  Eastman  plates. 

It  was  this  awful  crisis,  out  of  which  he  had  emerged 
at  last  so  successfully,  that  turned  Mr.  Eastman's  hair 
gray.  It  was  such  a  close  shave  for  him  that  he  could 
not  rest  until  he  had  discovered  why  his  formula  had 
failed.  He  finally  solved  the  mystery  —  it  was  in  the 
gelatine  he  had  been  using.  No  other  gelatine  he 
bought  anywhere  gave  him  the  good  results  his  first  lot 
did  —  why,  he  could  never  find  out. 

The  dry-plate  business  of  Eastman  &  Strong  was 
now  prospering,  but  competition  was  springing  up  all 
around  and,  by  1884,  business  was  bad  and  the  outlook 
gloomy. 

Mr.  Eastman,  with  remarkable  foresight,  had  an- 
ticipated this,  however,  and  had  started  experiments 
with  film  photography.  He  had  visioned  the  contri- 
vance soon  to  be  known  the  world  over  as  the  KODAK  — 
a  word  of  his  own  invention.  He  knew  that  if  only 
he  could  make  so  small  a  self-contained  photographic 
apparatus,  there  would  be  no  limit  to  the  demand  for 
it.  So  he  engaged  the  services  of  William  H.  Walker 
to  assist  him  in  experimenting.  Between  them,  they 
at  last  perfected  a  method  of  film  photography,  and  Mr. 
Walker  went  to  Europe  in  1885  to  introduce  it  there. 
Eirst  of  all,  however,  was  incorporated  the  Eastman  Dry 
Plate  &  Eilm  Company. 

In  1888  came  the  first  Kodak,  and  at  last  the  hith- 


GEOBGE  EiASTMAN  111 

erto  dark  and  mysterious  field  of  photography  became 
an  open  book  for  amateurs.  This  first  Kodak  was 
fitted  for  one  hundred  exposures  and  took  a  picture  two 
and  one-half  inches  in  diameter,  but  it  proved  a  bit 
troublesome  to  amateurs  who  mostly  had  to  return  their 
exposed  films  to  the  factory  to  be  developed.  This,  also, 
Mr.  Eastman  had  anticipated,  and  by  1892  he  had  per- 
fected and  patented  a  machine  by  which  his  company 
could  make  a  film  roll  with  a  transparent  support  tak- 
ing the  place  of  paper. 

Once  this  process  was  perfected,  and  the  new  film  put 
on  the  market,  things  began  to  hum  at  the  Eastman  fac- 
tory and  before  long  there  was  a  tremendous  expansion 
of  the  business.  Where  there  had  formerly  been  only 
a  hundred  or  two  photographic  dealers  in  the  country 
there  were  now  some  ten  thousand  to  fifteen  thousand ; 
and  Mr.  Eastman  decided  to  start  manufacturing  photo- 
graphic materials  of  every  sort  and  description  in  ad- 
dition to  his  films.  Formulas,  new  ideas  and  patents 
were  bought  from  time  to  time  and,  once  in  a  while, 
some  other  company  was  absorbed.  A  research  labora- 
tory was  also  established,  with  a  full  staff  under  the 
direction  of  a  well-known  physicist  and  chemist,  and 
everything  that  science  and  money  could  do  to  improve 
the  art  of  photography,  to  simplify  or  cheapen  it,  was 
done. 

To-day  nothing  is  commoner  than  a  Kodak,  and  a 
child  can  operate  one  that  costs  but  a  dollar. 

It  is  not  every  inventor  who  is  able  successfully  to 
exploit  commercially  his  own  inventions;  yet  this  is 
what  George  Eastman  has  done.  For  many  years,  he 


112  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

has  been  a  very  wealthy  man,  and  his  donations  to  his 
native  place,  Rochester,  have  been  very  large. 

In  1900  he  was  a  Presidential  elector  on  the  Repub- 
lican ticket,  casting  his  vote  for  McKinley  and  Roose- 
velt. 

He  is  still  unmarried,  and  fond  of  music,  hunting 
and  camping-out  trips  in  the  West.  His  hunting  lodge 
is  in  Halifax  County,  North  Carolina.  His  fine  resi- 
dence on  East  Avenue,  Rochester,  is  said  to  have  cost 
above  a  million  dollars. 

In  April,  1919,  his  company,  the  Eastman  Kodak 
Co.,  of  which  he  is  of  course  the  President,  distributed 
$6,000,000  in  stock  to  its  employees.  It  will  also  con- 
tinue its  usual  yearly  wage-dividend  of  at  least  a  mil- 
lion dollars. 

Mr.  Eastman  has  shown  during  his  business  career 
great  cleverness  and  originality  in  his  advertising 
methods.  The  short,  snappy  word  KODAK,  one  of  the 
best  known  trade-marks  in  the  world,  he  made  himself 
out  of  a  few  letters,  after  trying  out  innumerable  real 
words.  His  phrase,  "  You  press  the  button  —  we  do 
the  rest,"  in  Kodak  advertisements  caught  on  like  wild- 
fire and  came  into  popular  use  in  connection  with  end- 
less other  things. 

His  career,  like  Henry  Ford's,  illustrates  the  value 
of  an  idea.  George  Eastman  evolved  a  good  idea,  and 
he  stuck  to  it  patiently  and  persistently  until  he  made 
it  pay.  Obstacles  and  difficulties  that  would  have  over- 
come an  ordinary  man  only  increased  George  Eastman's 
determination  —  and  what  he  determined,  he  did. 

He  Kodaked  the  earth! 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

ELECTEICAL  WIZARD  AND  WORLD'S 
GREATEST  INVENTOR 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

ELECTRICAL  WIZARD  AND  WORLD'S 
GREATEST  INVENTOR 

ALIVE  wire,  a  bunch  of  irrepressible  energy  and 
curiosity  was  the  boy  Edison.  He  devoured 
all  books  within  reach,  and  when  ten  years  of 
age  was  reading  Hume's  "  History  of  England,"  Gib- 
bon's "  Decline  and  Fall,"  and  encyclopedias.  Books 
on  chemistry  fascinated  him  and  he  was  always  ex- 
perimenting to  "  see  what  would  happen."  It  is  amaz- 
ing that  such  insatiable  curiosity  as  he  evinced  on 
more  than  one  occasion  did  not  end  fatally  for  him. 

He  was,  for  example,  one  day  curious  to  see  what 
would  happen  if  he  built  a  fire  in  a  certain  barn  near 
his  home.  The  whole  building  went  up  in  flames,  and 
Tommy  was  soundly  whipped  in  the  village  square  as 
a  "  terrible  warning  "  to  all  other  boys,  good  or  bad ! 

What  he  learned  from  this  experiment  is  not  re- 
corded. 

When  only  six  years  old  the  boy's  dominant  trait  — 
perseverance  —  was  beginning  to  manifest  itself  and 
one  day  he  disappeared.  After  a  search  he  was  found 
sitting  on  some  goose-eggs  patiently  trying  to  hatch 
them! 

From  an  early  year  he  began  to  experiment  with 
chemicals  and,  by  the  time  he  was  twelve,  had  an  extraor- 

115 


116  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

dinary  collection  in  the  basement  of  his  mother's  house. 
He  spent  what  little  spare  time  he  had  from  earning  a 
living  down  in  his  "  laboratory  "  and  he  labeled  all  his 
phials  and  bottles  POISON  to  make  sure  no  one  would 
meddle  with  them. 

Cultivating  ten  acres  of  his  father's  farm  was  his  job 
for  awhile  and  this  he  accomplished  with  the  help  of 
another  boy,  selling  as  much  as  $600.00  worth  of 
produce  in  a  year.  Gratiot,  Michigan,  was  where  young 
Edison  did  his  farming,  but  his  birthplace  was  Milan, 
Ohio,  where  he  first  saw  the  light  of  day  on  February 
11,  1847. 

Thomas  Alva  was  he  christened,  and  his  father,  of 
Dutch  ancestry,  was  farmer,  lumber  and  grain  dealer. 
While  a  child  the  boy's  head  had  such  a  funny  shape 
that  the  doctor  predicted  mental  disturbances  at  no 
distant  date.  And  so  there  were  —  but  not  of  the 
kind  the  old  doctor  had  in  mind ! 

At  school  little  Tommy  Edison  couldn't  rise  higher 
than  the  bottom  of  his  class,  so  after  a  few  months  he 
was  sent  home  as  being  too  stupid  to  handle.  The 
teacher  said  he  was  "  addled  "  ! 

Not  very  many  years  after  this  humiliating  incident, 
Hudson  Maxim,  himself  a  great  inventor  and  learned 
man,  said  of  him :  "  Thomas  A.  Edison  is  the  most 
valuable  man  to  mankind  that  ever  lived." 

But  he  had  a  long  and  thorny  road  to  travel  before 
becoming  the  world's  greatest  inventor. 

Tommy  did  not  go  to  school  again.  His  mother,  a 
very  gifted  woman,  taught  him  at  home  and  this  is  all 
the  teaching  he  ever  received. 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON  117 

He  began  his  newsboy  career  on  the  Canadian  Grand 
Trunk  Railway  when  he  was  about  twelve,  his  train's 
run  being  from  Detroit  to  Port  Huron  and  back.  It 
was  hard  work  for  the  boy,  and  he  was  up  early  and 
to  bed  late,  getting  mighty  little  sleep.  But  he  was 
soon  making  money  for  himself,  for  he  was  a  bright, 
likable  lad,  and  had  no  difficulty  selling  his  papers, 
fruit  and  candy. 

As  his  savings  increased,  so  did  his  ambition,  and  he 
opened  a  couple  of  stores  at  Port  Huron,  putting  them 
in  charge  of  other  youths,  and  extended  his  newspaper 
business  by  putting  newsboys  on  other  trains.  But 
these  ventures  did  not  pan  out  very  profitably,  so  the 
young  capitalist  had  the  audacity  to  establish  his  lab- 
oratory on  the  train  in  a  part  of  the  "  smoker  "  not  used 
by  passengers. 

Meanwhile,  the  Civil  War  having  broken  out,  the 
boy,  who  was  always  thinking  and  observing,  noticed 
what  an  unusual  demand  there  was  for  news.  So  he 
decided  to  print  a  newspaper  of  his  own  on  the  train. 

Mr.  Edison,  reminiscing  one  day  over  his  experience 
as  a  newspaper  owner,  said: 

"  It  may  seem  impossible  for  a  boy  of  thirteen  or 
fourteen,  with  hardly  a  cent  in  the  world,  to  talk  of 
publishing  a  newspaper.  This  is  how  I  did  it.  I 
found  that  a  set  of  old  type  and  a  battered,  much-worn 
hand  press  had  been  discarded  at  the  office  of  the  De- 
troit Free  Press,  and  I  managed  to  secure  possession  of 
them.  Also,  the  railroad  put  an  old  baggage-car  at  my 
disposal  for  a  supply  room  for  my  papers  and  magazines 
while  on  my  trips.  Here  I  set  up  my  little  plant  and 


118     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

began  publication  of  the  ambitious  periodical  which.  I 
called  the  Grand  Trunk  Herald. 

"  Of  course,  the  journal  was  a  decidedly  amateurish 
affair,  about  twelve  by  sixteen  inches  in  size,  if  I  re- 
member rightly,  and  confined  to  gossip  of  the  line.  I 
was  my  own  reporter,  editor,  typesetter,  proofreader 
and  pressman.  The  railway  men  took  an  interest  in 
my  venture  and  soon  I  began  to  find  myself  supplied 
with  a  liberal  variety  of  personal  items  of  the  Grand 
Trunk.  Notices  such  as  the  announcement  that  the 
baggagemaster  at  the  country  station  had  broken  his  leg 
or  that  an  engine  had  gone  to  the  shop  for  repairs  or 
that  an  excited  passenger  had  lost  his  baggage  might  not 
be  of  general  interest,  but  they  tickled  the  railway 
men,  and  I  found  my  circulation  growing,  so  that  I  had 
to  hire  three  boys  to  help  me." 

When  important  war  news  came  in,  Edison  induced 
the  railway  telegraph  operators  to  announce  his  pa- 
per's contents  on  their  bulletin  boards  ahead  of  his  train. 
As  a  consequence  he  would  sometimes  find  big  excited 
crowds  waiting  for  him,  and  he  sold  his  papers  at 
fancy  prices  —  as  high  as  a  quarter  a-piece. 

It  was  at  this  period  of  his  career  that  he  divined, 
with  his  usual  genius  of  intuition,  the  practicability  and 
value  of  the  telegraph  in  spreading  news.  He  realized 
its  enormous  value  to  newspapers. 

His  paper  was  a  great  success,  and  in  one  year  his 
profits  amounted  to  about  $600.00.  But  calamity  was 
close  at  hand,  for  one  day  while  experimenting  in  his 
train-laboratory,  the  car  rolled  and  jolted  a  stick  of 
phosphorus  onto  the  floor.  Immediately  the  car  caught 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON  119 

fire,  and  his  laboratory  and  his  Grand  Trunk  Herald 
went  up  in  smoke.  So  enraged  was  the  conductor  that 
he  threw  Edison  off  the  train  at  the  very  next  stop, 
and  boxed  his  ears  so  soundly  that  he  has  been  prac- 
tically stone  deaf  ever  since. 

His  mother,  who  had  great  faith  in  him,  now  came 
to  his  rescue,  giving  him  the  basement  of  the  house  for 
his  laboratory,  and  about  this  time  he  saved  the  life 
of  a  station-agent's  little  son,  snatching  him,  in  the 
nick  of  time,  from  in  front  of  an  approaching  train. 

So  grateful  was  the  father  that  he  offered  to  teach  the 
youth  telegraphy.  This  was  one  of  Edison's  ambitions 
and  he  jumped  at  the  opportunity.  For  some  months 
by  working  about  eighteen  hours  a  day  he  mastered 
telegraphy,  and  built  a  line  a  mile  long  from  the  rail- 
road depot  to  the  village.  He  was  then  appointed  tele- 
graph operator  at  Port  Huron,  but  his  thirst  for  further 
knowledge  of  electricity  was  so  strong  that  he  used  to 
become  so  absorbed  in  his  experiments  as  to  neglect 
sending  or  delivering  messages.  He  was  discharged  for 
this  neglect  of  his  duties,  and  his  next  job,  in  1863,  was 
as  telegraph  operator  at  the  Grand  Trunk  station  of 
Stratford  Junction,  Canada. 

Erom  an  early  age  Edison  displayed  unusual  gump- 
tion. His  brain  seemed  to  work  faster  than  most  peo- 
ple's, and  arrived  at  solutions  of  small  and  big  prob- 
lems instantaneously.  He  once  gave  an  illustration  of 
this  wonderful  faculty.  Ice  in  the  St.  Clair  Eiver  had 
broken  the  electric  cable  between  Port  Huron,  Michigan, 
and  Sarnia,  Ontario,  and  no  communication  was  possi- 
ble. Edison,  at  the  time  a  telegraph  operator,  jumped 


120  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

on  a  locomotive  at  Port  Huron,  and  began  sending 
messages  on  its  whistle.  For  some  time  no  response  to 
his  "  Hello,  Sarnia !  "  came  across  the  mile  and  a  half 
of  swirling  ice-floes;  but  at  last  his  signal  was  caught 
by  the  Canadian  operator  and  he  began  getting  replies 
by  locomotive  whistle.  He  thus  established  communica- 
tion, without  wires,  between  the  two  towns. 

But  again  young  Edison  got  into  trouble  through  his 
passion  for  experimenting  and  inventing.  We  must  re- 
member, though,  that  he  was  only  fifteen  years  old.  To 
guard  against  operators  falling  asleep  during  the  night 
they  were  required  to  send  in  a  signal  every  hour.  The 
boy  thought  it  an  unnecessary  hardship  to  be  kept 
awake,  especially  when  there  was  "  nothing  doing/'  so 
he  contrived  a  machine  to  automatically  send  the  signal 
every  hour.  Then  there  was  a  collision  and  Edison 
fled  over  the  border. 

For  about  five  years  after  this  event  he  followed  his 
occupation  of  telegraph  operator,  first  in  one  place  and 
then  another,  at  last  settling  in  Boston,  where,  among 
other  things,  he  invented  a  stock-ticker.  Business  be- 
came very  bad,  however,  and  Edison  removed  to  New 
York,  leaving  his  books  and  instruments  behind  as  se- 
curity for  his  debts. 

When  he  landed  in  New  York  City  he  hadn't  a  single 
cent,  and  his  first  meal  in  the  metropolis  was  on  some 
tea  he  begged  from  a  tea-taster  he  ran  across. 

Now  came  the  turning-point  in  the  young  inventor's 
career.  Gold  speculation  was  at  its  height  and  three 
days  after  his  arrival  in  New  York,  he  wandered  into 
the  offices  of  the  Gold  and  Stock  Telegraph  Co.,  which 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON  121 

was  furnishing  the  quotations  by  telegraph  to  their  cus- 
tomers. As  he  was  watching  the  ticker,  it  stopped 
working.  In  a  few  minutes  in  rushed,  one  after  the 
other,  a  lot  of  messengers  with  the  news  that  their  mas- 
ters' tickers  had  stopped!  The  head  of  the  company, 
Dr.  Laws,  came  in  about  the  same  time  and  it  was 
found  that  the  apparatus  had  broken  down.  There 
was  great  excitement,  for  ruin  stared  the  concern  in 
the  face.  To  the  amazement  of  Dr.  Laws,  Edison 
"butted  in"  with  the  guess  that  he  "could  fix  it." 
The  employees  gaped  aghast  at  the  famished,  almost 
ragged,  youth's  temerity.  But  he  went  right  ahead 
and  did  fix  it.  The  result  was  that  he  was  made  gen- 
eral manager  of  the  whole  business  at  a  salary  of  $300.00 
a  month  the  very  next  day.  He  could  scarcely  believe 
his  ears  when  he  was  told  the  wages  he  was  to  get. 
It  seemed  a  princely  sum. 

Edison  now  worked  harder  than  ever  on  his  ideas, 
and  spent  every  minute  of  his  spare  time  in  experi- 
menting. He  soon  was  able  to  greatly  improve  the 
stock-ticker,  secure  a  number  of  patents,  and  later 
founded  the  firm  of  Pope,  Edison  &  Co.,  electrical 
engineers. 

Then  came  another  streak  of  luck.  He  had  been 
doing  work  for  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Co.,  and 
they  one  day  asked  him  how  much  he  wanted  for  a 
certain  patent.  He  was  wondering  if  he  dared  de- 
mand $5,000,  when  they  asked  him  if  $40,000  would 
be  a  fair  price.  He  thought  it  would ! 

Even  after  getting  the  check  he  was  skeptical  of  his 
good  fortune  and  in  a  fever  of  anxiety  to  cash  it.  When 


122     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

lie  got  to  the  bank  there. was  a  long  line  ahead  of  him. 
At  last  he  reached  -the  teller's  window,  and  timidly 
pushed  in  his  check.  It  was  immediately  thrown  back 
to  him,  for  he  had  not  indorsed  it.  He  had  never  had 
one  before.  The  teller  shouted  something  to  him,  which 
he  was  too  deaf  to  understand,  and,  with  his  heart  in 
his  boots,  and  still  believing  he  had  been  made  a  fool 
of,  he  went  back  to  the  Western  Union  and  told  his 
troubles  to  one  of  the  officials.  He  laughed  very  heart- 
ily at  Edison's  suspicions  and  sent  some  one  with  him 
to  the  bank  to  identify  him. 

By  way  of  a  joke  his  $40,000  was  paid  to  him  in  five- 
dollar  and  ten-dollar  bills,  and  Edison  had  hard  work 
finding  room  in  his  pockets  for  all  the  bundles.  After 
filling  his  pockets,  he  stuffed  bundles  down  his  neck 
next  to  the  skin,  and  journeyed  back  home  to  Jersey 
looking  very  "  lumpy."  On  the  train,  for  fear  of 
being  robbed,  he  wouldn't  let  any  one  sit  near  him. 
At  last  he  got  home  with  his  "  vast  wealth,"  but  for 
three  or  more  nights  he  couldn't  sleep  a  wink,  so  fear- 
ful was  he  of  being  robbed.  He  was  afraid,  too,  to 
leave  his  room  in  the  day-time.  At  last  he  made  up 
his  mind  he  could  stand  it  no  longer.  So,  stuffing  his 
$40,000  in  his  pockets  again,  back  he  went  to  the  West- 
ern Union  to  tell  his  trouble  to  his  friend. 

He  was  taken  to  a  bank,  his  money  deposited  for  him, 
and  he  got  a  check  book.  Then  he  slept  better. 

This  was  his  opportunity  to  do  what  he  had  for  long 
dreamed  of  doing.  With  the  capital  he  now  had  he 
started  a  plant  in  Newark,  N.  J.,  to  manufacture  stock- 
tickers,  and  in  a  little  while  his  business  became  ex- 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON  123 

tremely  prosperous.  His  factory  worked  day  and  night, 
and  this  is  what  he  did  himself,  taking  snatches  of 
sleep  in  his  workshop  instead  of  going  home. 

One  of  his  first  patents  was  an  automatic  telegraph 
capable  of  sending  and  receiving  three  thousand  words  a 
minute  and  recording  them  in  roman  type.  He  then 
took  hold  of  the  old  Remington  typewriter,  and  per- 
fected it;  later,  in  1873,  going  to  England  to  intro- 
duce his  automatic  telegraphic  inventions. 

Edison  inventions  came  thick  and  fast  now,  and 
during  the  '70's  he  worked  out  more  than  one  revolu- 
tionary invention,  including  his  wonderful  phonograph 
and  incandescent  lamp. 

The  phonograph  worked  at  the  first  trial,  and,  im- 
agine his  workmen's  stupefaction,  when  the  machine  re- 
peated the  words  he  had  talked  into  it, 

"Mary  had  a  little  lamb 

Its  fleece  was  white  as  snow," 

and  they  recognized  the  boss's  voice.  He  devoted  ten 
more  years,  though,  to  improving  it ;  once,  it  is  said,  go- 
ing without  sleep  for  five  days  and  nights.  Everything 
he  invented  was  the  result  of  innumerable  experiments, 
for  he  was  satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  perfection. 

After  evolving  his  incandescent  lamp,  came,  in  1882, 
one  of  his  hardest  tasks  —  establishing  the  first  elec- 
tric-lighting plant  in  New  York  City.  At  the  end  of 
this  year  only  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  buildings 
in  the  city  had  been  equipped!  People  were  terribly 
afraid  of  the  wires,  and  prejudice  was  hard  to  over- 
come. For  a  while,  to  get  people  started  and  accus- 


124     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

tomed  to  the  new  illuminant,  the  current  was  offered 
free  for  three  months.  Before  he  had  perfected  his  in- 
candescent lamp,  he  said  one  day  to  some  one  who 
doubted  his  ability  to  bring  it  to  a  success : 

"  You  wait,  now.  I'll  make  electric  light  so  cheap 
that  only  the  wealthy  can  afford  to  buy  candles." 

About  this  time  he  built  his  electric  railway  at 
Menlo  Park,  N.  J.,  he  being  one  of  the  first  men  in  the 
world  to  foresee  its  possibilities. 

Mr.  Edison's  tenacity  was  only  exceeded  by  his  pa- 
tience. For  example,  in  seeking  a  substance  suitable 
as  a  filament  for  his  electric-light  bulb,  he  experimented 
with  no  less  than  six  thousand  vegetable  growths,  finally, 
however,  discarding  all  of  them  in  favor  of  metal.  It 
took  nine  thousand  experiments  —  a  thousand  a  year  — 
to  complete  his  great  invention  of  the  storage-battery. 

Nothing  short  of  absolute  perfection  satisfied  him, 
and  it  is  hard  to  see  how  any  other  inventor  could  ever 
improve  upon  anything  coming,  finished,  from  Mr. 
Edison's  laboratory.  He  himself,  though,  took  hold 
of  many  other  men's  ideas  or  inventions,  and,  crude 
though  they  might  have  been,  made  them  into  prac- 
ticable, successful  inventions. 

In  the  United  States  alone  he  has  been  granted  more 
than  one  thousand  patents,  beating  all  records. 

He  suffered  a  heavy  blow  when  the  discovery  of  rich 
iron  mines  in  Michigan  caused  the  abandonment  of  his 
big  Jersey  magnetic  ore-milling  plant.  This  swept 
away  his  whole  fortune  and  put  him  heavily  in  debt. 
"  I  can  at  any  time  get  a  job  at  $75  a  month  as  tele- 
graph operator,"  he  said  cheerfully. 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON  125 

But  his  marvelously  fertile  brain  came  to  his  res- 
cue, for  he  invented  a  method  of  making  cement,  and 
soon  the  Edison  kilns  were  making  half  the  Portland 
cement  produced  in  America.  Then  he  conceived  the 
idea  of  "  pouring  cement  houses  " —  making  complete 
houses  of  cement  in  a  mold,  houses  that  could  be  trans- 
ported anywhere  and  that  of  course  were  fireproof. 

Many  stories  have  been  told  as  to  how  Mr.  Edison 
came  to  invent  the  phonograph,  his  wonderful  talking- 
machine,  but  the  following  is  the  only  true  explana- 
tion. Like  most  inventors,  Mr.  Edison  has  a  won- 
derful memory  and  is  extremely  observant  —  always 
keeps  his  wits  about  him.  In  his  early  work  with 
high-speed  automatic  telegraphs  he  had  occasion  to 
experiment  with  embossed  strips  of  dashes  and  dots 
moving  rapidly  beneath  a  stylus  to  vibrate  it,  and 
which,  he  observed,  produced  audible  sounds.  From 
this  trivial  thing  he  got  the  inspiration,  or  idea,  of  the 
talking-machine,  concluding  that  if  the  undulations  on 
the  strip  could  be  given  the  proper  form  and  arrange- 
ment, any  desired  sounds  could  be  reproduced.  How  to 
produce  the  undulations  was  the  problem  —  but  al- 
most immediately  the  idea  came  to  Mr.  Edison  that  they 
could  be  produced  by  the  sounds  themselves.  This  de- 
duction completed  his  chain  of  reasoning,  and  the  in- 
vention, the  phonograph,  was  produced ! 

Mr.  Edison  has  made  so  many  inventions  that  he 
has  been  called  the  "  great  American  patentee,"  and 
any  attempt  to  enumerate  his  countless  inventions  would 
be  useless.  The  following,  however,  he  considers  the 
greatest  of  his  inventions ; 


126     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

Quadruple  telegraph,  incandescent  light,  phonograph, 
moving-pictures,  telephone  transmitter,  electric  storage 
battery,  electric  railway. 

His  first  invention,  by  the  way,  was  an  electric  vote 
recorder,  with  which,  in  Congress,  a  member  could  by 
pressing  a  button  record  his  vote  without  losing  any 
time  or  leaving  his  seat.  He  expected  a  grateful  and 
enthusiastic  reception  when  he  arrived  in  Washing- 
ton and  explained  the  workings  of  his  wonderful  in- 
vention. But,  to  his  chagrin,  he  found  that  some  de- 
vice to  hamper  and  delay  action  by  voting  would  be 
more  welcome. 

During  the  recent  war,  Mr.  Edison  was  one  of  the 
very  first  among  the  Nation's  greatest  men  to  be  picked 
out  by  our  Government  to  help  and  advise  them.  He 
gave  all  his  time  to  Uncle  Sam,  solving  such  problems 
as  engines,  batteries  and  torpedoes  for  submarines, 
wireless  for  warships,  the  aniline  dye  famine. 

Mr.  Edison  was  once  asked  what  advice  he  could 
give  to  would-be  inventors.  He  said  in  reply : 

"  The  best  advice  I  can  give  to  a  man  who  wants 
to  be  a  successful  inventor  is  to  work  twenty  hours  a 
day.  That  is  what  I  did  for  thirty  years,  and  I  cannot 
see  that  it  hurt  me." 

Mr.  Edison  is  one  of  the  best  examples  of  American 
grit,  and  to-day,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three,  he  is  Amer- 
ica's Grand  Old  Man  in  the  field  of  industrial-elec- 
trical invention. 

His  great-grandfather  lived  to  the  age  of  one  hundred 
and  four,  his  grandfather  to  the  age  of  one  hundred  and 
two,  but  his  father  was  only  ninety-four  when  he  died. 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON  127 

Mr.  Edison  attributes  his  own  marvelous  energy  and 
capacity  for  hard  work  to  simple  living.  Most  of  us 
eat  too  much,  he  says,  and  his  own  food  consumption 
has  been  of  the  most  frugal  description.  "  I  can't  be 
bothered  eating !  "  he  has  exclaimed  when  called  to  a 
meal,  and  it  is  well  known  of  course  that  he  has  often 
gone  for  days  without  either  food  or  sleep,  when  in  the 
middle  of  an  important  experiment.  He  is  one  of  the 
hardest  workers  that  ever  lived. 

In  practically  all  his  inventions  Mr.  Edison  has  had 
the  poor  in  mind.  He  has  lighted  their  homes  at  nom- 
inal cost,  brought  the  prima-donna  and  orator  (with 
his  phonograph)  into  the  family  circle,  enabled  poor 
people  to  live  out  of  town,  own  fireproof  portable  houses, 
etc. 

He  is  fond  of  books,  and  in  the  way  of  fiction  likes 
detective  stories,  his  brain  being  of  the  kind  that  nat- 
urally loves  to  work  over  and  solve  problems. 

Not  long  ago  Mr.  Edison  was  asked  if  it  wasn't  a 
fact  that  opportunities  for  boys  were  fewer  to-day  than 
they  were.  He  said  in  reply: 

"  I'd  rather  begin  now  as  a  poor  boy  than  to  start 
again  in  the  conditions  which  surrounded  my  early 
life. 

"  The  opportunities  for  a  poor  boy  or  a  poor  man 
are  greater  to-day  than  they  were  then ;  make  no  mistake 
about  that." 


HENRY    FORD 


HENRY  FORD 

THE  ALADDIN  OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE 
INDUSTRY 

O1ST  July  30,  1863,  there  was  born  on  a  farm  at 
Dearborn,  near  Detroit,  Michigan,  a  boy  who 
was  destined  to  make,  within  the  miraculously 
short  span  of  ten  years,  a  fortune  so  huge  that  in  all 
the  world  there  is  but  one  other  man  to-day  with  a 
larger  one. 

And  in  all  the  world  but  one  other  man  ever  made 
so  much  money  so  rapidly  as  did  this  Michigan  boy, 
Henry  Ford,  once  he  got  his  automobile  factory  started. 

A  year  or  two  ago  his  share  of  the  profits  of  his 
business,  for  one  year,  amounted  to  about  $40,000,000, 
which  means  a  daily  income  of  more  than  $100,000. 

He  once  said :  "  I  don't  have  to  worry  about  banks 
—  they  have  to  worry  about  me.  They  have  to  sit 
up  nights  scraping  together  enough  to  pay  me  my  in- 
terest." 

What  was  the  early  career  of  this  still  young  man 
who  got  so  enormously  wealthy  in  so  short  a  time? 
Did  he  succeed  through  luck?  How  did  he  do  it? 

Henry  Ford  was  born  on  his  father's  three-hundred- 
acre  farm.  He  did  not  seem  to  be  a  bit  different  from 
other  boys,  except  that  he  liked  playing  with  tools,  and 
making  things  with  them  out  of  odds  and  ends  from 

131 


132  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  junk  pile.     He  once  built  an  engine  in  this  way. 

As  he  grew  older  his  fondness  for  mechanical  things 
increased,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  he  was  wasting 
time  between  the  farm  and  school.  So  one  morning  he 
played  "  hookey/'  and  walked  all  the  way  to  Detroit 
—  eight  miles  —  to  hunt  a  job.  Almost  immediately 
he  got  one  at  the  Flower  steam-engine  works  at  $2.50  a 
week. 

As  he  had  to  pay  $3.50  a  week  for  board,  he  thus 
faced  a  weekly  deficit  of  $1.  So  to  come  out  even,  he 
had  to  get  night  work.  This  was  not  so  easy,  but  at 
last  he  succeeded  in  getting  a  jeweler  to  give  him  $2 
a  week  for  four  hours7  work  at  night. 

This  meant  a  fifteen-hour  day  for  Henry,  as  he  had 
to  work  from  seven  A.  M.  to  six  p.  M.  and  then  from 
seven  to  eleven  at  night. 

Such  strenuous  work  turned  the  raw  country  youth 
into  a  very  capable  mechanic,  and  in  course  of  time 
he  began  to  use  his  brain,  think  and  plan,  and  make 
suggestions,  for  he  discovered  inefficiency  and  labor- 
waste  at  the  plant.  His  wages  were  raised  to  $3.00, 
but  he  decided  that  he  ought  to  learn  something  new, 
so  went  to  the  Dry  Dock  Engine  Works  at  $2.50.  A 
knowledge  of  marine  machinery  manufacturing  would, 
he  figured,  be  worth  the  fifty  cents  a  week.  In  a  little 
while  his  wages  were  doubled,  so  he  gave  up  his  night 
work. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  young  Ford,  as  well 
as  being  an  unusually  skilled  mechanic,  was  in  some 
way  different  from  the  other  "  boys "  of  the  plant. 
Although  he  skylarked  with  them  and  took  part  in  their 


HENRY  FOED  133 

games,  he  had  a  restless,  ambitious  spirit,  and  was  al- 
ways hammering  out  some  new  idea  or  scheme  for 
making  a  fortune.  He  quickly  became  a  leader  among 
the  youths,  many  of  whom  were  inspired  by  his  earnest- 
ness and  ambition. 

One  of  his  dreams  at  this  time  was  to  start  a  watch 
factory  that  would  turn  out  two  thousand  watches  a 
day  costing  thirty-seven  cents  each  and  selling  for  fifty 
cents.  This  he  easily  proved  could  be  done  by  buying 
materials  in  great  quantities,  and  manufacturing  the 
watches  with  extreme  rapidity. 

But  he  was  destined  to  make  automobiles  —  not 
watches,  for  just  about  the  time  his  fellow  workmen 
were  getting  interested  in  his  watch  scheme,  he  had  to 
go  "  back  to  the  farm  "  and  take  care  of  it. 

He  now  had  a  chance  to  read  and  study,  and  one  day 
he  came  across  an  article  in  a  technical  magazine  de- 
scribing a  horseless  vehicle  of  French  invention.  At 
last !  —  This  was  just  the  sort  of  thing  he  had  been 
vaguely  dreaming  of.  It  beat  his  watch  scheme  all  to 
pieces ! 

So,  with  every  sense  alert,  off  he  went  to  Detroit  to 
buy  materials  with  which  to  construct  an  engine  that 
would  beat  the  Frenchman's. 

As  he  started  to  the  depot  in  Detroit,  on  his  way 
home,  he  met  a  fire-engine.  He  noticed  its  big  boiler, 
and  could  not  help  thinking  what  a  waste  its  weight 
and  bulk  caused.  On  getting  home  he  began  to  experi- 
ment with  an  improved  engine,  and  then  came  a  great 
idea  — "  Why  not  use  gasoline  for  the  motive-power  ?  " 

Then  he  realized  that  he  couldn't  go  any  further  un- 


134     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

til  lie  knew  more  about  electricity.  At  that  time  he 
knew  next  to  nothing  about  the  mysterious  fluid.  So, 
to  everybody's  amazement,  he  abandoned  the  farm,  and 
headed  for  Detroit  again.  Luck  was  in  his  way,  for  he 
at  once  got  work  at  the  Edison  Light  and  Power  Co.'s 
plant  as  night  engineer  at  $45.00  a  month.  It  hap- 
pened this  way.  There  was  a  balky  engine  in  one  of 
their  substations.  The  engineer  in  charge  could  do 
nothing  with  it,  and  it  seemed  a  hopeless  case.  Ford 
came  along  at  this  moment. 

"  So  you  think  you  can  tame  this  bucking-bronco  en- 
gine, do  you  ?  "  said  the  boss. 

"  Well,  I'd  like  to  have  a  try  at  it." 

"  All  right !  "  replied  the  engineer,  "  go  ahead !  " 

Ford  took  right  hold  of  that  cranky  engine,  and  had 
it  in  perfect  running  order  in  less  than  no  time. 

Six  months  later  he  was  transferred  to  the  Edison 
headquarters  as  manager  of  the  mechanical  department 
at  $150.00  a  month. 

The  young  mechanic,  who  had  but  recently  married, 
began  to  feel  about  this  time  that  his  fortune  was  made. 
He  built  a  house  for  himself  and  wife,  adding  a  large 
shed  to  it  for  a  workshop  —  for  he  was  determined  to 
complete  his  gasoline  engine  in  order  to  build  a  horse- 
less carriage. 

While  he  was  experimenting  he  had  to  put  up  with 
much  ridicule  and  suspicion  as  to  his  sanity. 

"  '  Kenny's  '  dotty !  "  said  one ;  "  he's  crazy,"  said 
another. 

But  "  Henny  "  just  about  this  time,  though  he  didn't 
know  it,  was  carving  his  name  deep  on  the  pillar  of 


HENEY  FOED  135 

fame,  and,  in  spite  of  the  treatment  he  was  getting 
from  his  neighbors,  and  his  wife's  urging  that  they  go 
back  to  the  farm,  stuck  heroically  to  his  experimenting. 

The  last  evening  he  tinkered  on  his  engine  he  worked 
all  night.  All  efforts  of  his  wife  to  drag  him  from  it 
failed.  "  In  a  minute,"  he  kept  saying.  But  the  min- 
utes ran  into  hours  —  and  still  he  worked. 

By  morning,  Henry  Ford  had  completed  his  task  — 
had  manufactured  a  horseless  vehicle.  And  no  sooner 
had  he  put  the  finishing  touches  to  it  than  he  rode  it 
down  the  avenue.  After  traveling  very  slowly  for  sev- 
eral blocks,  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  couldn't  turn. 
So  getting  off,  he  pulled  and  pushed,  finally  reversing 
it.  Then  he  rode  it  back  to  his  shed,  tremendously 
elated  with  his  success. 

This  first  Ford  car  was  a  very  crude,  clumsy  affair  — 
a  one-cylinder  engine  mounted  on  a  buggy  frame  rid- 
ing on  four  bicycle  wheels  refitted  with  strong  tires. 
For  a  while  Ford's  "  contraption  "  caused  no  little  stir 
and  amusement,  but  interest  soon  died  out,  and  he  real- 
ized that  he'd  have  to  think  up  many  improvements 
before  he  could  afford  to  throw  up  his  position  and 
start  manufacturing  motor-cars. 

So  for  no  less  than  eight  years  after  this  initial 
effort  Henry  Ford  worked  all  day  at  his  job,  and  then 
labored  half  of  every  night  over  the  problem  of  im- 
proving his  machine. 

His  perseverance  was  truly  wonderful ! 

By  this  time  automobiles  were  coming  into  general 
use,  but  they  were  expensive,  luxurious  vehicles  within 
reach  only  of  the  rich.  Ford's  idea  was  the  same  idea 


136     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

he  had  evolved  as  to  watches  while  a  youth  with  the 
Dry  Dock  Company  —  to  make  a  cheap  vehicle  in  such 
large  quantities  as  to  enable  people  of  small  means  to 
own  one.  So,  steadily  persevering,  he  at  last  devised 
a  two-cylinder  engine  that  worked  to  perfection,  built  a 
real  body  for  it,  and  rode  about  in  it  extensively  so  as 
to  advertise  it,  for  he  wanted  to  interest  capital,  form  a 
company,  and  start  automobile  building.  He  foresaw 
an  enormous  demand  —  and  enormous  money-making 
possibilities.  Capitalists  were  timid,  however,  and  he 
could  find  no  one  willing  to  risk  any  money  in  such  a 
venture. 

"  When  a  feller  needs  a  friend/'  he  usually  finds  him 
among  the  lowly,  seldom  or  never  among  the  rich  and 
powerful.  This  was  the  case  with  Ford  in  his  dark 
hour.  He  knew  a  man  styled  "  Coffee  Jim,"  who  ran 
a  lunch  wagon.  He  had  faith  in  Ford,  and  put  up 
enough  money  to  enable  him  to  give  up  his  job  at  the 
Edison  plant  and  build  a  car  to  compete  in  the  automo- 
bile races. 

Alexander  Winton,  one  of  the  contestants,  had  beaten 
everybody  up  to  date  with  his  car,  and  when  Ford's  little 
two-cylinder  car  loomed  up  at  the  races  there  was  a 
general  laugh.  Gloom  settled  down  upon  the  Winton- 
ites,  however,  for,  amid  cheers,  the  Ford  car  took  the 
lead,  spinning  around  and  around  the  track  and  finish- 
ing first. 

Ford  and  his  car  got  a  lot  of  valuable  publicity  out 
of  the  race,  and  capitalists  a-plenty  came  around,  but  as 
they  one  and  all  stipulated  for  control  no  Ford  factory 
was  built  just  then.  Ford,  though  an  inventor,  was  too 


HENEY  FORD  137 

shrewd  to  let  anybody  else  grab  control  of  his  idea. 

About  this  time  James  Couzens,  a  shrewd  merchant 
of  Detroit,  Tom  Cooper,  a  champion  bicycle  rider,  and 
a  few  other  men  of  modest  means  became  interested  in 
Ford  and  his  car,  and  with  capital  they  furnished,  Ford 
built  a  four-cylinder  monster  of  eighty  horse-power. 
Barney  Oldfield  was  engaged  to  drive  it,  and  in  a 
three-mile  race  he  won  by  half  a  mile ! 

The  feat  startled  the  world,  and  fortune  now  seemed 
to  smile  on  the  poor  mechanician.  Offers  of  capital 
poured  in,  and  a  company  was  formed  of  which  Ford 
became  vice-president,  general  manager,  etc.,  at  $150 
a  month.  But  a  quarrel  arose  at  the  outset.  His 
backers  wanted  to  manufacture  high-priced  cars  sell- 
ing for  thousands  of  dollars,  and  Ford  was  determined 
to  stick  to  his  original  intention  for  making  cheap  cars 
for  the  masses.  As  a  result  of  the  clash  Ford,  now 
more  than  thirty  years  old,  and  with  a  wife  and  a  child 
to  support,  found  himself  without  money  or  job. 

Two  men,  however,  Couzens  and  Wills,  sided  with 
Ford  and  put  up  some  money.  A  large  shed  was  rented, 
a  couple  of  workmen  hired,  and  enough  material  pur- 
chased to  build  a  few  low-priced  cars.  Their  company 
was  capitalized  at  $100,000,  but  only  about  $28,000 
cash  was  paid  in. 

Ford  now  saw  that  his  opportunity  had  come,  and 
he  worked  like  a  Trojan  day  and  night,  his  two  me- 
chanics also.  His  customers  increased  rapidly,  many 
of  them  paying  substantial  sums  in  advance,  and  soon 
the  Ford  shop  was  employing  forty  men  and  ordering 
material  in  carload  quantities.  Every  cent  he  made- 


138     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

he  put  back  into  the  business,  and  his  sales  were  at  the 
rate  of  one  thousand  cars  a  year.  The  price  of  his 
car  then  was  $900. 

Then  winter  began,  a  time  when  orders  were  scarce, 
and  consequently  money.  So  Ford  made  up  his  mind 
to  build  a  four-cylinder  car  that  would  beat  the  world's 
record  —  and  it  did  ! 

Now  it  was  almost  Christmas  —  and  there  wasn't  a 
cent  in  the  treasury  to  pay  his  one  hundred  workmen 
with.  It  was  an  awful  crisis  for  Ford.  A  dishonest, 
tricky,  shifty  man  would  have  lied  to  his  men  and  jol- 
lied them  along,  promising  them  all  sorts  of  impossible 
things.  But  Ford  was  not  that  kind  of  man.  He  was 
an  honest  man,  as  well  as  practical  idealist,  and  he  was 
shrewd  and  far-seeing. 

He  told  his  workmen  frankly,  truthfully,  what  the 
exact  conditions  and  prospects  were,  and  to  a  man  they 
agreed  to  stand  by  him.  This  was  the  red-letter  day  in 
Henry  Ford's  career.  Cars  tumbled  out  of  his  shop 
faster  than  ever,  and  before  long  success  came  with  a 
rush  —  so  fast  as  to  be  dizzying. 

In  1914  he  put  into  effect  his  minimum  wage  of  $5 
a  day  (it  is  now  $7),  and  reduced  the  working  hours 
to  eight  a  day.  This  led  to  an  invasion  of  Detroit  by 
job-seekers  that  was  seriously  embarrassing  for  awhile. 

Mr.  Ford  displayed  marvelous  wisdom  and  knowledge 
of  human  nature  in  raising  his  workmen's  pay  and  re- 
ducing their  work  hours,  though  employers  almost  the 
world  over  called  him  "  dreamer,"  even  "  fool."  For  in 
one  month,  February,  1914,  under  the  new  eight-hour 
plan  less  than  sixteen  thousand  men  made  ten  thousand 


HENEY  FOED  139 

more  cars  than  fully  sixteen  thousand  men  did  the  pre- 
vious February  working  ten  hours  a  day.  Maybe  his 
new  plan  didn't  pay ! 

Right  on  top  of  this  revolutionary  proceeding  Mr. 
Ford  instituted  a  profit-sharing  plan,  and  after  being 
in  operation  five  months  the  bank  accounts  of  employees 
benefiting  by  it  showed  an  average  increase  of  three- 
fold, the  value  of  their  homes  increasing  ninety  per 
cent,  as  well. 

Then  he  began  to  divide  profits  with  his  customers, 
by  reducing  the  price  of  his  cars. 

Mr.  Ford  to-day  has  six  men  in  his  employ  each  get- 
ting a  salary  of  $75,000  a  year,  a  number  at  $50,000, 
and  many  thousands  who  are  getting  from  $7  a  day  up. 
All  have  a  "  chance  upward." 

Mr.  Ford  keeps  enormous  sums  on  deposit  in  various 
banks,  and  is  one  of  but  very  few  men  in  the  world  who 
can  draw  a  check  for  five  or  ten  millions.  Enormously 
wealthy  as  he  is,  however,  he  makes  no  investments  out- 
side his  own  business. 

"  I  have  never  sought  fame  nor  dollars,"  he  once  said. 
"  I  have  never  tried  to  save  money  and  do  not  believe 
in  young  people  saving  money.  Youth  should  spend 
its  resources  in  carrying  out  its  ideas,  in  education,  in 
character  formation.  .  .  .  My  money  comes  in  fast  — 
and  it  goes  out  fast  into  new  forms  of  industries  ger- 
mane to  my  own  business." 

In  line  with  this  wise  policy  Mr.  Ford,  less  than  a 
year  ago,  put  $7,000,000  into  a  tractor  factory  which 
will  employ  four  thousand  workmen  and  turn  out  two 
hundred  and  ten  tractors  a  day. 


140     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

His  solution  of  the  labor  problem  is  the  sharing  of 
his  profits  —  not  annually,  but  weekly  —  with  his  em- 
ployees. He  holds  that  if  given  in  a  lump  sum  at  the 
end  of  the  year  it  is  almost  certain  to  be  lost  in  a  bad 
investment.  By  figuring  the  profit  —  and  paying  it  — 
weekly,  the  workman  will  live  better,  dress  better,  spend 
more  money  on  his  home  and  family,  and  soon  own  a 
house. 

"  I  began,"  he  says,  "  by  having  the  desire  to  build 
a  motor-car  that  would  be  within  the  means  of  the 
many,  that  would  stand  up  and  be  worth  while.  I  suc- 
ceeded, and  have  sold  more  than  three  million  of  them." 

It  was  this  idea,  together  with  his  liberal  treatment 
of  his  employees  —  his  willingness  to  share  his  profits 
and  prosperity  with  his  workmen  —  that  made  Henry 
Ford  the  world's  greatest  leader  of  industry,  and,  for 
his  age,  the  world's  wealthiest  man. 

Mr.  Ford  is  only  fifty-six,  and  as  wiry  and  active  as 
ever.  He  is  of  medium  height,  slightly  built,  has  keen 
humorous  eyes,  and  abundant  gray  hair.  His  clean- 
shaven, very  mobile  face  is  like  an  actor's,  and  he  is 
very  magnetic,  and  filled  with  a  tremendous  enthusiasm 
that  is  contagious.  He  manifests  an  intense  interest  in 
everything,  and  likes  to  discuss  and  analyze  —  find  out 
the  why  and  wherefore  of  things. 

Like  most  geniuses,  mechanical  and  otherwise,  Henry 
Ford  is  indifferent  to  and  careless  with  money.  While 
in  his  private  workshop  at  his  plant  one  day  he  was 
handed  a  check  for  $200,000  by  one  of  the  officials.  A 
month  passed  and  to  the  surprise  of  his  office  the  check 
had  not  come  back!  Obviously  it  had  not  been  de- 


HENRY  FORD  141 

posited  anywhere.  Mr.  Ford  was  asked  about  it,  and 
for  awhile  had  no  recollection  of  it.  Bewilderment 
set  in. 

"  Hold  on,  wait  a  minute !  "  suddenly  cried  Mr.  Ford, 
who  was  beginning  to  remember. 

And  diving  down  into  a  pocket  of  his  greasy  overalls 
he  produced  a  much  soiled  and  twisted  up  scrap  of 
paper.  It  was  the  check,  which,  in  his  intense  ab- 
sorption, he  had  thrust  into  his  pocket  and  clean  for- 
gotten about. 

Mr.  Ford  is  intensely  democratic,  loves  his  fellow 
man,  and  is  filled  with  the  spirit  of  helpfulness.  As 
one  of  his  townsmen  once  said: 

"  If  you  get  stuck  in  a  rut  with  a  tin  Lizzie,  and 
'  Henny '  comes  along  in  another,  he'll  stop  and  pull 
you  out  —  if  he  can.  And  mostly  he  can !  " 

Mr.  Ford's  only  son,  Edsel,  refused  a  chance  to  go  to 
college,  preferring  to  follow  in  his  father's  footsteps 
and  go  to  work  in  the  plant.  He  is  now  familiar  with 
every  department  of  the  immense  plant,  and  can  be 
seen  any  day  hard  at  work  at  a  desk  in  his  father's 
office  in  Detroit.  Edsel  is  a  chip  of  the  old  block  — 
a  shrewd,  hardworking  youngster  amply  able  to  make 
a  living  for  himself. 

Mr.  Ford  sold  his  Detroit  home,  and  now  makes  his 
residence  on  his  two-thousand-acre  farm  on  Rouge 
River,  near  his  old  home,  Dearborn.  His  winter  home 
is  at  Altadena,  California.  He  is  a  nature-lover,  fond 
of  birds  and  flowers.  At  an  expense  of  $4,000  he  once 
imported  five  hundred  rare  birds  from  England.  The 
very  night  of  the  day  his  feather  pets  arrived  at  his 


142      FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

Rouge  River  farm  —  he  freed  them  all.  They  looked 
homesick,  he  explained,  and  he  couldn't  sleep  thinking 
of  them  huddled  up,  lonesome-like  in  their  cages. 

He  is  fond  of  boys,  too,  for  he  was  once  a  poor  hard- 
working boy  himself.  Every  year  he  takes  a  dozen  or 
more  boys  from  the  Detroit  streets,  keeps  them  at  school 
in  winter,  and  lets  them  work  on  the  farm  in  summer. 
He  feeds  and  houses  them  all  the  year  round  and  em- 
ploys a  man  specially  to  look  after  them.  If  they're 
good  boys,  work  hard  —  make  good  —  there's  a  bright 
future  in  store  for  them. 

Some  of  Mr.  Ford's  sayings,  and  recipes  for  suc- 
cess, are  interesting  and  valuable. 

"  Ideas  are  the  great  forces  in  the  world." 

"  Do  not  bother  about  money-making,  but  put  all  your 
effort  into  putting  over  your  idea.  If  you  do  that  the 
money  will  inundate  you.  That's  the  secret  of  suc- 
cess, I'm  inclined  to  believe." 

"  The  only  way  to  save  money  is  to  go  ahead  and 
make  so  much  that  you  have  the  hardest  kind  of  work 
in  spending  it  all." 

"  I  spend  no  more  on  myself  than  any  man  in  my 
employ.  Money  to  me  merely  means  a  way  to  do 
something  more." 

"  Decrease  prices,  raise  wages  in  proportion  as  busi- 
ness grows." 

"  The  world  is  rapidly  coming  to  the  partnership 
(between  employer  and  employee)  idea." 

"  Nothing  that  does  not  pay  is  of  any  good, —  my 
paper  (The  Dearborn  Independent),  for  instance;  if  I 
cannot  make  it  pay  it  will  serve  no  purpose." 


HENRY  FORD  143 

"  ~No  man  who  fastens  his  eyes  on  fame  or  the  dollar 
ever  arrives  anywhere." 

"  It's  good  business  sense  to  divide  with  your  em- 
ployees." 

Mr.  Ford  never  reads  "  boosts "  on  himself.  His 
secretaries  put  them  in  the  furnace.  But  he  likes  to 
read  "  knocks."  These  all  reach  him.  He  profits  by 
them ;  so  he  says : 

"  A  wife  helps  a  man  more  than  any  one  else  —  she 
criticizes  him  more !  " 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR 

INVENTOR  OF  VULCANIZED  EUBBEE 


CHARLES   GOODYEAR 


CHAELES  GOODYEAR 

INVENTOR  OF  VULCANIZED  RUBBER 

A  SLIGHT  mischance  or  trivial  accident  has  often 
resulted  in  a  great  invention  or  discovery.  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  the  English  philosopher  and 
mathematician,  was  alseep  under  an  apple-tree  when  a 
ripe  apple  dropped  upon  his  forehead,  wakening  him. 
This  led  to  his  great  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravitation. 
The  boy  Stephenson,  watching  his  mother's  kettle  on 
the  fire,  was  startled  when  he  saw  the  lid  suddenly 
rise,  letting  out  a  puff  of  steam  and  then  as  suddenly 
fall,  only  to  rise  and  fall  again  a  moment  later,  the 
operation  getting  more  and  more  frequent  as  the  boil- 
ing water  emitted  more  and  more  steam,  until  finally 
the  lid  was  lifted  off  the  kettle  altogether.  This  seem- 
ingly trivial  incident  gave  the  lad  the  wonderful  idea 
of  harnessing  steam  —  and  he  invented  the  steam  en- 
gine which  revolutionized  industry  and  travel  by  land 
and  sea. 

One  cold  spring  day,  Mr.  Goodyear  was  standing1 
before  a  stove  in  a  store  at  Woburn,  Massachusetts,  ex- 
plaining to  some  skeptical  acquaintances  the  properties 
of  a  piece  of  his  sulphur-cured  india-rubber  which  he 
was  holding  between  his  fingers,  when  he  accidentally 
dropped  it  on  the  almost  red-hot  stove.  He  naturally 
expected  it  to  be  burned,  or  at  any  rate  melted,  but, 

147 


148     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTEY 

to  his  surprise,  it  was  only  shriveled  and  hardened,  not 
softened. 

This  little  accident  would  have  meant  nothing  to 
most  men,  but  to  Goodyear,  his  senses  and  wits  sharp- 
ened hy  penury  and  want,  it  was  in  the  nature  of  a 
revelation.  He  continued  his  experiments  with  india- 
rubher  with  the  utmost  ardor,  for  he  had  made  the  dis- 
covery that  rubber,  when  mixed  with  sulphur  and 
subjected  to  intense  heat,  would  become  permanently 
hard  —  would  not  soften  or  melt.  In  other  words,  the 
art  of  vulcanizing  rubber  was  almost  within  his  grasp, 
his  only  remaining  difficulty  being  to  ascertain  the 
exact  degree  of  heat  and  the  exact  space  of  time  to 
apply  it. 

India-rubber  at  this  time  was  more  or  less  of  a  cu- 
riosity, or  toy.  Chunks,  or  balls,  of  the  curious  sub- 
stance were  given  to  children  to  play  with,  because  of 
its  resiliency,  or  elasticity.  When  thrown  to  the  ground 
or  against  a  wall  the  rubber  would  bound  back,  high 
in  the  air  many  times,  before  "  going  dead  "  on  the 
ground.  It  was  the  delight  of  boys  and  girls.  Good- 
year's  accident  with  a  piece  of  his  prepared  rubber  led 
to  its  eventual  world-wide  use,  in  myriad  ways,  in  com- 
merce. 

Charles  Goodyear,  whose  invention  has  proved  an 
incalculable  benefit  to  humanity,  was  one  of  the  most 
unfortunate  of  our  great  inventors,  and,  though  suc- 
cessful in  perfecting  his  invention,  died  in  debt. 
Charles,  the  son  of  Amasa  Goodyear,  who  was  the  first 
man  to  make  hay-forks  of  spring  steel  instead  of 
wrought  iron,  was  born  at  New  Haven,  Conn.,  on  De- 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  149 

cember  29,  1800.  He  attended  the  public  schools 
of  New  Haven,  and  spent  most  of  his  early  youth  on 
his  father's  farm,  or  in  his  factory.  He  was  a  great 
reader,  being  especially  fond  of  the  Bible  and  other  re- 
ligious works.  While  doing  odd  jobs  around  the  farm 
his  inventive  talent  came  to  the  surface  and  he  made 
improvements  in  first  one  thing  and  then  another.  On 
coming  of  age,  his  father,  then  in  business  in  Phila- 
delphia, took  him  into  the  firm.  The  business  of  A. 
Goodyear  &  Sons  was  quite  prosperous  until  1830,  when 
panicky  times  came,  and  the  firm  had  to  suspend. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  a  rubber  boom  started. 
Large  quantities  of  the  crude  article  were  imported  into 
the  United  States,  india-rubber  factories  sprang  up  and 
many  companies  were  organized  for  its  manufacture 
into  shoes  and  coats.  But  the  manufactured  product 
was  very  unsatisfactory.  The  shoes  and  coats  made 
in  winter,  softened  and  disintegrated  in  summer.  And 
severe  cold  froze  them  stiff. 

Some  friends,  it  is  said,  presented  Daniel  Webster, 
the  famous  statesman  and  orator,  with  one  of  these  new- 
fangled india-rubber  coats  and  hats,  in  the  early  days 
of  their  manufacture.  One  cold  morning  he  went  out 
onto  the  piazza  of  his  residence  wearing  them.  They 
froze  as  hard  as  iron,  so,  releasing  himself  from  his 
rigid  coat,  which  stood  on  the  porch  where  he  left  it, 
and  putting  the  hat  on  top  of  it,  he  went  inside. 
[Friends  passing  by  bowed  to  the  stiff  figure,  believing 
it  to  be  the  great  Daniel  Webster. 

India-rubber  was  known  for  a  hundred  years  or  more 
before  Goodyear's  day.  French  scientists  had  discov- 


150     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

ered  in  Peru,  in  1735,  a  singular  tree  whose  bark 
when  pierced  yielded  a  milky  gum.  This  sap  was  col- 
lected in  clay  vessels  and,  when  dried  in  the  sun,  became 
hard.  This  hard  material  was  caoutchouc  —  or  crude 
rubber,  and  for  a  long  time  was  nothing  but  a  curiosity. 
In  England  small  pieces  of  this  crude  rubber  were  for 
quite  a  time  sold  at  a  high  price  as  curiosities,  coming 
in  time,  however,  to  be  used  for  erasing  pencil  marks. 
Then  about  1830  Mackintosh,  an  English  manufac- 
turer, used  it  in  his  famous  waterproof  coats,  inserting 
a  thin  layer  between  two  pieces  of  cloth.  Mackin- 
toshes, as  these  rubbery  garments  were  called,  soon  be- 
came all  the  rage  for  wear  in  rainy  weather. 

It  was  in  1834  that  Charles  Goodyear  turned  his 
attention  to  india-rubber,  and  until  he  died  his  mind 
was  wholly  absorbed  with  the  idea  of  manufacturing 
from  the  substance  a  solid  elastic  material.  Practically 
the  first  object  of  rubber  that  came  to  his  attention  was 
a  life-preserver,  for  which  he  almost  immediately  in- 
vented a  valve  device,  rushing  to  New  York  with  it  to 
see  the  Roxbury  Company.  The  rubber  fever  was  at 
its  height  then,  resembling  a  gold  or  oil  craze,  and 
Goodyear  was  sanguine  of  selling  his  invention.  He 
was  soon  enlightened  as  to  the  real  condition  of  affairs 
in  the  india-rubber  industry,  and  was  urged  to  devote 
his  time  to  discovering  some  method  of  bestowing  dura- 
bility to  india-rubber  goods. 

This  was  soon  after  the  failure  of  A.  Goodyear  & 
Sons,  and  Charles,  on  his  return  to  Philadelphia,  was 
arrested  and  jailed  for  debt.  For  a  while  the  young  in- 
ventor was  compelled  to  carry  on  his  work  and  experi- 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  151 

ments  in  prison.  Later  he  continued  his  experiments, 
though  often  in  the  direst  distress,  in  New  York  and 
Massachusetts.  His  courage  and  persistence  were  truly 
wonderful,  and  he  never  lost  hope.  Whenever  he  got 
a  few  dollars,  they  were  immediately  invested  in  new 
materials,  and,  with  fresh  courage  and  energy,  he  would 
go  on  experimenting. 

About  1835  he  got  his  first  encouragement  when, 
after  countless  trials,  he  discovered  that  by  boiling 
the  gum  (rubber)  with  magnesia  in  quicklime  and  wa- 
ter a  substance  resulted  that  seemed  to  be  what  was 
wanted.  He  got  a  patent  and  began  to  sell  his  prod- 
uct. 

A  year  later  came,  by  accident,  another  important 
discovery.  After  bronzing  some  india-rubber  cloth,  he 
applied  some  aqua  fortis  to  remove  some  of  the  bronze, 
but,  as  it  seemed  to  have  destroyed  the  cloth,  he  threw 
it  aside.  A  week  later,  on  picking  up  the  supposed 
spoiled  piece  of  cloth,  he  saw  that  it  had  undergone 
quite  a  change.  The  acid  had  hardened  it  to  such  a 
degree  that  heat  would  no  longer  melt  it.  Then  he  con- 
sidered that  as  the  aqua  fortis  contained  sulphuric  acid, 
it  was  this  latter  that  had  "  cured,"  or  vulcanized,  his 
india-rubber  cloth. 

The  secret  he  had  been  seeking  to  discover,  lo,  these 
many  days,  was  now  his ! 

He  soon  found  a  partner  with  money  and  together 
they  leased  an  abandoned  rubber  factory  on  Staten  Is- 
land, ~N.  Y.,  and  also  opened  a  store  on  Broadway,  New 
York  City. 

Everything  went  splendidly  for  a  year  or  two,  when 


152     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  panic  of  1837  ruined  his  partner,  and  again  Good- 
year was  penniless.  Everywhere  he  went  to  raise  fresh 
capital  he  was  ridiculed,  and  people  began  to  call  him 
the  "  India-rubber  maniac." 

So,  failing  of  success  in  New  York,  Goodyear  set- 
tled in  Roxbury,  Mass.,  where  he  succeeded  in  getting 
E.  M.  Chaffee  to  put  the  plant  of  the  Roxbury  Rubber 
Company  at  his  disposal.  Again  for  a  while  he  was 
prosperous  —  and  then  again  he  was  penniless.  But  his 
confidence  in  himself  and  faith  in  his  product  led  him 
to  persevere,  and  on  and  on  he  went,  starving  and  strug- 
ling,  even  selling  his  children's  school-books  in  order 
to  buy  food  or  materials.  He  used  to  bake  his  rubber 
compounds  in  his  wife's  oven,  and  sometimes  beg  the 
use  of  ovens  at  the  shops  in  Woburn  after  hours.  The 
workmen  thought  him  crazy. 

Then  one  day  came  another  important  discovery. 
He  saw  one  of  his  employees,  Hayward,  sprinkling  the 
rubber  with  sulphur  and  drying  it  in  the  sun.  Sulphur 
had  the  same  effect,  he  noted,  as  nitric  acid,  "  cured  " 
it  just  as  well,  and  he  found  that  heat,  applied  to  the 
sulphured  article,  caused  it  to  become  pliant  in  cold 
weather,  retain  its  wonderful  elasticity  at  all  times, 
and  to  lose  much  of  its  disagreeable  odor.  Hayward 
used  to  say  that  the  process  was  revealed  to  him  in  a 
dream. 

This  discovery  came  in  1839,  but  with  it  came  greater 
hardships  than  ever.  Eor  a  long  time  he  was  forced 
to  live  on  charity.  In  one  crisis,  half  starving,  in  mid- 
winter, he  trudged  many  miles  through  the  snow  seek- 
ing aid.  He  stumbled  in  the  snow  over  and  over  again, 


CHAELES  GOODYEAR  153 

nearly  succumbing  to  the  cold.  Finally  he  reached  the 
home  of  his  acquaintance,  Mr.  Coolidge,  who  gener- 
ously gave  him  enough  money  to  keep  himself  and  fam- 
ily all  winter. 

After  undergoing  almost  incredible  sufferings,  the 
darkest  hour  of  his  life  being  the  day  when  his  child 
died  from  lack  of  the  commonest  necessities  of  life,  he 
at  last  enlisted  the  aid  of  his  brother-in-law,  William 
DeForrest,  and,  in  1844,  obtained  his  patent  for  vul- 
canized rubber. 

While  in  Washington  getting  the  patent  he  secured 
an  interview  with  President  Andrew  Jackson,  showing 
him  some  specimens  of  his  manufactured  rubber.  The 
President  gave  him  a  letter  over  his  own  signature 
commending  them. 

Goodyear  received  his  most  substantial  help,  though, 
from  the  Eider  Brothers  of  New  York,  both  men  of 
considerable  property  and  of  keen  intelligence.  They 
furnished  a  large  sum  of  money  to  manufacture  the 
Goodyear  articles.  Goodyear  secured  altogether  about 
sixty  patents,  and  at  the  World's  Fair  in  London  in 
1851  the  Great  Council  Medal  was  conferred  upon 
him,  and  in  Paris  in  1855  he  won  the  grand  prize,  also 
receiving  from  the  hands  of  Napoleon  III  the  Cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

Though  a  prey  to  necessity  up  to  the  day  of  his  death, 
he  lived  to  see  his  invention  applied  to  fully  five  hun- 
dred uses,  and  a  huge  army  of  people  busy  manufac- 
turing "  Goodyear  rubber  goods." 

His  invention  conferred  many  benefits  upon  hu- 
manity, for  multifarious  are  the  uses  to  which  it  has 


154  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

been  made  available.  In  our  Civil  War  its  great  value 
was,  for  the  first  time,  fully  realized. 

Goodyear  had  the  sublime  faith  and  stick-to-it-iveness 
of  the  true  inventor.  Once  he  got  his  idea,  he  stuck 
to  it,  worked  and  worked,  experimented  and  experi- 
mented, to  the  last  ditch.  His  tenacity  was  truly  won- 
derful. It  equaled  that  of  the  potter,  Palissy,  who 
used  all  the  furniture  in  his  humble  home  and  part 
of  the  house  itself  as  fuel  in  his  furnace  to  obtain  the 
requisite  heat  to  perfect  his  enamel  ware. 

To-day,  thanks  to  Goodyear,  the  rubber  industry  has 
grown  to  stupendous  proportions  and  his  name  is  a 
household  word.  American  automobilists  alone  are 
spending  now  a  billion  dollars  a  year  for  rubber  tires, 
and  the  uses  of  rubber  in  countless  other  ways,  espe- 
cially in  humanitarian  purposes,  are  world  wide. 

Like  wood,  steel  or  copper,  rubber  has  become  a 
staple. 

Had  Goodyear  lived  to  see  the  outbreak  of  the  world- 
war  his  wealth  would  have  been  fabulous.  As  it  was 
he  died  in  debt,  but  not 

"  Unwept,  unhonored,  and  unsung." 


HENRY  JOHN     HEINZ 

PITTSBURGH  PICKLE  KING  AND 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL  LEADER 


HENRY  JOHN  HEINZ 

PITTSBURGH  PICKLE  KING  AND 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL  LEADEE 

AN   inspiring  and   really  wonderful   romance  of 
business  is  the  story  of  Henry  John  Heinz,  the 
Pittsburgh  boy  who  built  up  the  largest  pickling 
and    preserving    corporation    in    the    world,    entirely 
through  his  own  efforts  and  initiative.     He  did  it,  too, 
in  a  very  few  years,  and  to-day  his  name  is  a  familiar 
one  the  world  over. 

Henry's  father  came  from  Bavaria  to  Pittsburgh  in 
1840,  and  it  was  in  the  Smoky  City  that  the  boy  was 
born  in  October,  1844.  His  parents,  in  1850,  re- 
moved to  Sharpsburg,  where  his  father  continued  his 
business  of  brick-making,  later  becoming  a  building 
contractor  in  addition. 

The  boy  from  an  early  age  showed  unusual  intelli- 
gence, so  his  education  and  upbringing  were  given 
much  thought  and  care  by  his  parents,  who  were  very 
fond  of  him.  When  he  was  old  enough,  he  used  to 
spend  some  of  his  time  at  the  kilns,  helping  his  father ; 
or,  when  he  was  not  at  school  or  studying  his  lessons 
at  home,  his  parents  would  let  him  assist  in  the  cul- 
tivation of  a  garden  that  was  a  part  of  their  four-acre 
home  plot.  This  work  was  very  much  to  the  boy's  lik- 
ing, and  he  loved  to  potter  about  the  vegetable  patches 
and  flower-beds  "  watching  things  grow."  It  was  while 

157 


158     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTEY 

at  work  in  this  famous  garden  that  the  seeds  of  ideas 
were  implanted  in  his  mind  that  later  on  he  seized 
upon  and  developed  into  what  proved  a  veritable  gold 
mine. 

The  boy  had  more  than  an  average  share  of  his  Eu- 
ropean wine-making  ancestors'  shrewdness  and  thrift- 
iness,  and  it  soon  dawned  upon  him  that,  as  the  garden 
produced  more  than  the  family  could  eat,  he  could  per- 
haps sell  the  surplus  and  make  some  money  for  his  father 
and  also  himself.  To  his  own  and  his  parents'  sur- 
prise he  had  great  success  selling  the  garden-truck  at 
market  to  the  villagers,  and  one  summer,  before  he  was 
seventeen,  sold  as  much  as  $2,400  worth. 

His  success  was  so  marked,  and  he  developed  such 
extraordinary  business  gumption  —  good  horse  sense  — 
that  his  parents,  who  had  about  decided  to  make  a  min- 
ister of  him,  sent  him  instead  to  a  business  college, 
for,  thought  they,  he  surely  is  intended  for  a  business 
man. 

Here  Henry  studied  business  forms  and  usages,  and 
learned  a  lot  about  commercial  accounting.  Later  he 
became  his  father's  bookkeeper  and  practical  assistant. 
He  almost  immediately  showed  himself  a  resourceful, 
go-ahead  young  man  by  introducing  into  his  father's 
brickyards  new  methods  by  which  they  could  be  run 
in  winter  as  well  as  summer.  His  father  was  so  pleased 
that  he  gave  him  a  partnership. 

His  ambition  was  too  large,  however,  to  be  bounded 
by  such  a  small  business,  and,  with  his  father's  con- 
sent, he  later  on  withdrew  from  the  firm  to  form  a 
partnership  in  the  brick  business  at  Beaver  'Falls. 


HENEY  JOHN  HEINZ          159 

But  still  he  was  not  satisfied.  Ever  since  his  boyhood 
days,  when  he  had  been  so  successful  in  selling  garden 
produce,  he  had  been  nursing  an  idea  —  the  idea  of 
pickling,  or  otherwise  preserving,  vegetables.  In  those 
days  this  business  was  in  its  infancy  in  America,  nearly 
all  packed  or  preserved  foods  being  imported  from  Eu- 
rope. They  were  therefore  expensive,  and  in  the  na- 
ture of  luxuries.  He  foresaw  a  good  demand  and  large 
sale  for  a  home  product,  so,  with  L.  C.  Noble,  he 
started  a  packing  and  preserving  plant  in  one  room  of 
a  small  two-story  building  at  Sharpsburg,  Pa. 

For  a  year  young  Heinz  gave  his  attention  solely  to 
horseradish,  which  he  dressed  in  a  new  way  and  packed 
in  bottles.  He  procured  the  horseradish  from  the  fam- 
ily garden,  using  in  a  year  as  much  as  filled  three 
quarters  of  an  acre.  With  a  basket  of  his  prepared 
horseradish  in  bottles  he  would  go  out,  day  after  day, 
and  peddle  it.  Soon,  as  he  added  pickles,  sauces  and 
other  foods  to  his  product,  he  had  to  use  a  wheelbarrow. 
Finally  the  variety  of  his  pickles  and  preserved  prod- 
ucts grew  so  large  that  he  had  to  buy  a  horse  and  cart. 
Jams  and  jellies  were  added  to  the  Heinz  product,  and 
his  "  pork  and  beans  "  gained  for  him  a  big  reputation. 

In  the  meantime  the  firm  was  increased  by  one  more 
partner,  E.  J.  Noble,  and  then  the  business  was  re- 
moved to  Pittsburgh,  where  a  large  four-story  build- 
ing was  leased.  For  three  years  the  business  under  the 
three  partners  went  along  very  prosperously,  but  in 
18 75  the  Nobles  retired  from  the  firm,  and  Henry 
Heinz's  brother,  John  H.,  and  his  cousin,  Frederick, 
bought  an  interest.  In  1882  a  vinegar  plant  was  es- 


160     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

tablished,  and  in  1905  the  business,  now  grown  to 
enormous  size,  was  turned  into  a  corporation  with 
Henry  John  Heinz,  founder  of  the  business,  president. 

To-day  the  Heinz  business  is  doubtless  the  largest  of 
its  kind  in  the  world ! 

In  addition  to  the  large  plant  at  Pittsburgh  with  its 
four  thousand  employees,  there  are  sixteen  branch  fac- 
tories (including  one  in  England,  one  in  Canada  and 
one  in  Spain),  ninety-eight  salting  houses,  forty-five 
distributing  centers,  four  hundred  traveling  salesmen, 
and  agencies  everywhere  in  the  world.  And  it  takes 
about  forty  thousand  people  to  harvest  the  annual  prod- 
uct, of  the  company's  forty  thousand  acres  of  land. 

The  little  four-acre  garden  grew  to  a  forty-thousand- 
acre  one ! 

Thus  we  see  how  the  praiseworthy  desire  of  a  boy 
to  help  his  parents  by  preparing  and  selling  table 
delicacies  from  the  family  garden  and  thereby  turning 
an  honest  penny  led  to  the  building  up  of  a  colossal 
world-wide  business  and,  of  course,  a  big  fortune. 

It  took  grit  and  gumption  —  and  Henry  Heinz  had 
both.  He  stuck  to  his  idea  through  thick  and  thin. 

Much  of  the  Pickle  King's  success,  from  the  time 
he  first  began  to  pickle  and  preserve  anything,  was 
due  to  his  insistence  upon  cleanliness  in  his  factory, 
and  everywhere. 

His  original  idea,  which  has  never  been  deviated 
from,  was  to  give  the  public  the  earth's  choicest  prod- 
ucts, so  prepared  and  packed  as  to  offer,  at  a  fair,  rea- 
sonable price,  the  highest  possible  degree  of  quality, 
purity  and  cleanliness. 


HENRY  JOHN  HEINZ  161 

To  attain  this  end  Mr.  Heinz  inaugurated  a  program 
that  only  a  great  captain  of  industry  could  have  suc- 
cessfully developed  and  brought  to  perfection. 

The  result  was  one  of  the  largest  and  most  efficient 
industrial  businesses  in  the  world  —  a  model  plant  to 
which  fifty  thousand  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  find  their  way  annually.  His  policy  successfully 
carried  out,  led  him  ahead  of  less  careful  competitors, 
the  public  rapidly  coming  to  have  confidence  in  his 
packing.  So  the  business  grew  very  fast,  once  the 
Heinz  standard  of  high  quality  was  known. 

Mr.  Henry  John  Heinz,  who  was  carried  away  in 
May,  1919,  by  pneumonia,  lived  'a  life  of  great  use- 
fulness and  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  country's 
foremost  manufacturers  and  business  men.  He  en- 
joyed equal  prominence  in  church  and  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
work,  and  as  a  broad-minded  philanthropist. 

He  took  unusual  care  of  his  employees,  providing 
for  them  a  lecture  hall,  library,  bathrooms,  lunch-rooms, 
roof  garden  and  wholesome  amusements  —  vaudeville 
and  minstrel  shows.  The  galleries  of  his  employees' 
hall  he  filled  with  costly  historical  and  other  paintings 
which  he  procured  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  He 
believed  in  travel,  of  the  kind  that  was  instructive,  and 
he  himself  made  many  trips  abroad,  and  some  extensive 
tours  in  Palestine,  Egypt,  Mexico,  Bermuda,  the  West 
Indies.  Everywhere  he  went  he  kept  his  eyes  open 
for  curios  and  works  of  art,  to  add  to  his  wonderful 
collection. 

Though  he  bought  many  art  treasures  in  foreign 
lands,  he  was  a  thorough  American,  as  an  artist  once 


162     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

found  out.  While  Mr.  Heinz  was  abroad  the  artist 
painted  some  portraits  in  a  frieze  of  the  library  he  was 
decorating  for  the  wealthy  pickle  manufacturer. 

"  Whose  portraits  are  they  ? "  inquired  Mr.  Heinz 
when  he  saw  them. 

"  Michelangelo,  Savonarola,  Moliere  ..." 

"  There  stop/'  said  Mr.  Heinz  with  his  usual  kind 
voice  and  smile.  "  I  am  an  American  in  every  fiber 
of  my  body  and  in  every  heartbeat.  These  were  very 
eminent  gentlemen,  but  they  never  knew  America. 
Scrape  them  out  and  insert  a  few  Americans  of  the 
type  of  Franklin,  Longfellow,  Whittier,  Lincoln,  Em- 
erson —  our  own  poets  and  statesmen.  This  must  be 
an  American  room  so  far  as  those  portraits  are  con- 
cerned." 

He  kept  in  very  close  touch  with  his  employees,  do- 
ing much  to  help  encourage  them,  for  one  of  his  suc- 
cessful ideas  was  that  a  business  must  be  run  by  heart 
power.  So  he  treated  his  help  fairly,  helping  those 
deserving  it  over  rough  places,  and  as  fast  as  employees 
displayed  the  right  kind  of  ability  and  sufficient  of  it 
—  he  took  them  into  the  firm  —  made  them  his  partners. 
There  never  was  a  strike  at  the  Heinz  works. 

Mr.  Heinz  was  a  liberal  and  wise  giver  in  charitable 
matters.  One  of  his  favorite  maxims  was :  "  Make 
all  you  can  honestly,  save  all  you  can  prudently,  give 
all  you  can  wisely." 

His  philanthropies  were  many  and  varied,  extend- 
ing as  far  as  Japan,  China  and  Korea,  which  Far  East- 
ern lands  he  once  visited  as  chairman  of  a  Sunday 
School  Commission.  In  1906  he  succeeded  John  Wana- 


HENRY  JOHN  HEINZ  163 

maker  as  president  of  the  Pennsylvania  Sabbath  School 
Association,  and  he  was  also  chairman  of  the  executive 
committee  of  the  World's  Sabbath  School  Association, 
with  its  36,000,000  members. 

One  of  his  sons,  Howard,  while  at  Yale  University 
became  greatly  interested  in  boys'  club  work,  and  on 
his  return  home  wanted  to  establish  himself  in  this 
kind  of  work  for  boys  and  girls  on  a  large  scale. 

Howard's  father  became  much  interested  in  his  work, 
at  last  deciding  to  erect,  at  his  own  expense,  a  special 
building,  with  modern  equipment,  for  use  in  carrying 
on  this  work. 

Up  to  the  time  of  his  death  he  took  the  keenest  in- 
terest in  Sunday  School  and  other  church  work,  and 
also,  like  Mr.  Rockefeller,  gave  away  much  money  for 
educational  purposes  —  the  building  up  or  founding  of 
schools  and  universities. 


CYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK 

INVEJSTTOK  OF  THE  HEAPING  MACHINE 


CYRUS   HALL   MCCORMICK 


CYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK 
INVENTOR  OF  THE  REAPING  MACHINE 

IT  seems  strange  that  anything  so  common  and  so 
necessary  as  an  agricultural  implement  should  re- 
main unimproved,  absolutely  unchanged,  through 
several  thousand  years.  Yet,  until  Robert  McCormick 
and  his  son  Cyrus  bent  their  minds  to  improving  it,  the 
sickle  (reaper)  was  the  same  rude  implement  as  that 
used  by  our  remotest  ancestors.  It  was  the  same  hand 
instrument  as  was  used  by  the  Egyptians  along  the 
banks  of  the  Nile  and  by  the  Babylonians  and  still  more 
ancient  races  in  the  valley  of  the  river  Euphrates, 
which  flowed  through  the  Garden  of  Eden. 

Necessity,  however,  is  the  mother  of  invention,  and, 
for  the  reason  that  the  boy  Cyrus  McCormick  found 
it  terrible  drudgery,  the  hand  sickle  was  superseded 
by  the  reaping  machine,  and  another  revolutionary  in- 
vention placed  to  the  credit  of  American  pluck  and 
ingenuity. 

Cyrus  McCormick,  who  invented  the  reaper,  was 
born  on  February  15,  1809,  on  the  paternal  farm  in 
Rockbridge  County,  Virginia,  in  a  period  of  hard  times 
and  Indian  and  other  wars.  Robert,  his  father,  was 
Scotch-Irish,  that  strain  which  is  conceded  to  be  the 
backbone  of  American  democracy.  He  was  an  edu- 

167 


168     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

cated  man,  and  though  his  homestead  was  built  of  logs, 
it  was  commodious  and  well  furnished,  with  parlor, 
mahogany  furniture,  carpets  and  books. 

Robert  McCormick  was  a  man  of  property  and  high- 
standing  and  ranked  with  some  of  the  most  prominent 
gentleman-farmers  of  his  State  —  men  like  Washing- 
ton, Jefferson,  Webster  and  Clay.  His  farms  covered 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  acres,  and  included  grist 
mills,  sawmills,  smelting  furnace,  distillery  and  black- 
smith's shop. 

This  was  in  the  days  of  Tecumseh,  whose  Shawnee 
braves  were  terrorizing  the  settlers,  the  days  when  the 
vast  prairies  of  our  Western  country  were  roamed  by 
buffalo,  when  Chicago  was  unknown  and  New  York 
City  about  the  size  of  Mobile,  Alabama.  The  West 
was  a  vast  unfarmed  stretch  of  wilderness,  and  what 
little  farming  was  done  was  done  with  primitive  wooden 
tools  —  the  wooden  plow,  the  sickle,  scythe  and  flail. 

After  1812,  however,  there  was  a  large  and  increasing 
immigration  into  America  of  some  of  the  best  blood  and 
brain  of  Great  Britain,  and  a  great  demand  for  farm- 
land set  in. 

It  was  in  such  times  as  these,  when  our  Republic  was 
still  very  young,  that  the  boy  Cyrus  McCormick  lived. 
When  he  could  he  attended  school,  but  for  the  most  part 
he  worked  on  his  father's  farm,  or  cut  wood  and  weeded 
the  garden  before  his  breakfast.  The  Bible  and  cate- 
chism, Murray's  English  Grammar,  Webster's  Spelling 
Book  and  Dilworth's  Arithmetic  were  practically  the 
only  books  he  studied  in  school. 

Cyrus  was  a  very  serious  boy,  and  had  the  faculty 


CYEUS  HALL  McCOEMICK          169 

of  concentration.  He  could  stick  to  a  task  and  let 
nothing  interrupt  him  until  he  had  finished  it.  He 
was  a  thinker  and  planner,  and  always  intent  upon 
something  or  other.  When  about  fourteen,  for  exam- 
ple, he  felt  the  need  of  a  map  of  the  world.  He 
planned  and  drew  one  with  great  skill. 

When  he  was  fifteen,  being  a  sturdy,  strong-limbed 
youth,  he  started  out  one  day  to  do  some  reaping  — 
a  man's  job,  if  ever  there  was  one.  For  hours,  the 
perspiration  rolling  down  his  face,  he  stood  amid  the 
ripe  wheat  swinging  the  clumsy  implement  that  cut  it. 
At  last  body  and  brain  rebelled  against  the  drudgery, 
and  flinging  down  his  sickle  he  was  soon  absorbed  in 
thought.  How  to  make  his  job  easier  was  his  problem. 
Not  that  he  was  in  the  least  degree  indolent.  He  was 
a  regular  dynamo  of  energy,  and  there  wasn't  a  lazy 
drop  of  blood  in  his  body.  But  he  had  a  wonderful 
brain,  the  mind  of  an  inventor,  and  he  intuitively  felt 
that  there  was  a  "  better  way "  of  reaping  grain  — 
could  he  only  discover  it.  He  saw  that  if  he  were  to 
continue  this  work  he  would  need  a  lighter,  handier  im- 
plement, one  that  could  be  swung  to  and  fro  easily. 

After  considerable  thinking  and  planning  he  set  to 
work  and  most  laboriously  whittled  out  a  smaller 
cradle.  He  was  then  able  to  do  more  and  better  work 
with  less  effort  with  his  invention.  A  second  invention 
of  his  was  a  hillside  plow.  Later  on  he  improved  this 
into  a  self-sharpening  horizontal  plow. 

"  Cyrus/'  said  a  man  who  knew  him,  "  was  a  nat- 
ural mechanical  genius.  He  was  always  trying  to  in- 
vent something." 


170  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

There  was  a  little  log  workshop  near  the  McCormick 
homestead,  and  here  Robert  and  his  sons  used  to  work 
and  experiment  on  rainy  days. 

When  Cyrus  was  eighteen,  he  followed  in  the  foot- 
steps of  George  Washington  and  studied  surveying. 
The  quadrant  he  made  for  his  own  use  is  still  preserved. 
By  the  time  he  was  of  age  Cyrus  was  a  tall,  muscular 
and  quite  handsome  young  man,  grave,  dignified,  and 
always  absorbed  in  thought  or  business. 

Though  he  attended  church  regularly  and  sang  in 
the  choir,  and  doubtless  was  acquainted  with  many  girls, 
he  didn't  at  this  period  devote  any  time  to  "  society." 
As  he  explains,  in  a  letter  to  a  cousin  in  1831 : 

"  Mr.  Hart  has  two  fine  daughters,  right  pretty,  very 
smart,  and  as  rich  probably  as  you  would  wish;  but, 
alas !  I  have  other  business  to  attend  to !  " 

Cyrus  little  knew  when  he  wrote  this  letter  that  this 
"  other  business  "  would  some  day  bring  into  being  a 
plant  in  Chicago,  covering  two  hundred  and  twenty-five 
acres ! 

Cyrus7  father,  long  before  he  was  born,  had  realized 
that  the  hand  sickle  was  clumsy  and  imposed  needless 
drudgery,  and  it  had  been  the  dream  of  his  life,  his 
one  consuming  ambition,  to  invent  a  Reaper  —  a  har- 
vesting machine. 

His  first  attempt,  which  was  tested  in  the  harvest  of 
1816,  was  a  failure.  By  1831  he  had  improved  it  — 
but  again  it  was  a  failure.  So,  after  fifteen  years  of 
experimenting,  he  gave  it  up  as  a  hopeless  job. 

Cyrus,  now  twenty-two,  full  of  energy  and  enthus- 
iasm, seized  upon  the  reaper  his  father  had  attempted 


CYRUS  HALL  McCOBMICK          171 

to  invent,  and,  with  characteristic  intentness,  began  ex- 
perimenting himself. 

His  extraordinary  mechanical  genius  enabled  him  to 
triumph  over  every  obstacle.  Taking  hold  of  the  crude 
machine  his  father  had  constructed  and  that  wouldn't 
work,  the  first  thing  the  youth  did  was  to  invent  the 
"  reciprocating  blade  " —  a  straight  blade  with  back  and 
forward  motions  of  its  own  —  a  blade  with  two  mo- 
tions. Another  problem  he  solved  was  the  supporting 
of  the  grain  while  it  was  being  cut.  In  that  same  year, 
1831,  he  finished  his  task,  and  one  day  in  July  he  gave 
a  successful  test-exhibition  of  his  reaper.  A  few  days 
later  he  cut  six  acres  of  oats  with  it. 

The  next  year  he  gave  a  public  exhibition  of  his 
reaper  at  Lexington,  encountering,  however,  a  great  deal 
of  opposition  and  ridicule,  for  the  laborers  saw  no  work 
for  them  if  it  came  into  general  use.  Seeing  the  young 
man's  plight,  one  of  the  spectators,  a  member  of  the 
State  Legislation,  the  Hon.  William  Taylor,  who  owned 
the  adjoining  farm,  said : 

"  Young  man,  I'll  give  you  a  chance  on  my  farm. 
Just  pull  that  fence  down  there  and  go  in." 

Mr.  Taylor  was  a  broad-minded,  progressive  man, 
and  had  some  confidence  in  the  invention.  Besides,  he 
liked  the  young  man's  looks  and  admired  his  pluck. 

The  test  was  a  success,  and  Mr.  Taylor  pronounced 
the  McCormick  Reaper  invention  worth  $100,000. 

Cyrus'  father  was  greatly  pleased,  and  said :  "  It 
makes  me  feel  proud  to  have  a  son  do  what  I  could  not 
do." 

Cyrus  now  began  the  business  of  manufacturing  his 


172  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTEY 

reaping  machine,  offering  them  at  $50  apiece;  but, 
such  was  the  prejudice,  that  it  was  nine  years  before 
he  could  find  a  farmer  with  courage  enough  to  buy  one. 
Meanwhile  he  had  to  work  his  farm,  and  then  some 
iron  mines  on  his  land,  to  keep  going.  A  panicky  time 
came  along,  however,  and  he  became  bankrupt.  His 
creditors  swept  everything  away  save  his  reaper,  which, 
being  the  work  of  a  "  crazy  man "  was  not  deemed 
worth  carting  away ! 

Cyrus  did  not  lose  courage  on  account  of  this  his  first 
failure,  but  went  ahead  giving  exhibitions  of  the  ma- 
chine. For  a  long  time,  though,  nobody  would  buy 
one,  and,  up  to  1839,  he  hadn't  sold  a  single  one.  At 
last  Fortune  smiled.  One  day  Abraham  Smith,  a  far- 
mer living  some  distance  away,  mustered  up  courage  to 
buy  one.  All  went  well  for  a  few  days  —  the  machine 
worked  beautifully  and  Farmer  Smith  was  more  than 
pleased. 

Then  it  rained,  and  for  the  first  time  it  was  discovered 
that  the  McCormick  Reaper  wouldn't  cut  wet  grain! 
So  Cyrus  had  to  take  the  machine  back,  and  go  on  ex- 
perimenting. His  reaper  was  not  yet  perfect. 

Many  men  would  have  given  up  the  problem  —  would 
have  thrown  the  machine  onto  the  junk  pile.  But 
Cyrus  McCormick  was  not  that  kind  of  man.  He  had 
too  much  faith  and  determination.  After  much  thought 
he  got  the  idea  of  giving  his  blade  a  serrated  edge,  that 
is,  of  nicking  it  like  a  saw.  On  trying  his  new  blade 
it  worked  to  perfection  —  and  the  problem  of  a  success- 
ful reaper  was  at  last  solved! 

Fixing  the   price   of  his   reaper   at   $100,    he  now 


CYEUS  HALL  McCOEMICK          173 

started  out  to  be  his  own  salesman.  It  was  mighty 
hard  work,  for  he  had  to  give  endless  demonstrations 
with  his  fantastic-looking  invention,  and  do  a  lot  of 
talking  and  traveling.  In  one  year  he  had  sold  only 
seven ;  the  next  year,  1843,  he  disposed  of  twenty-nine, 
in  1844  selling  fifty. 

But  he  began  to  experience  an  unlooked-for  difficulty. 
Some  customers  for  his  reaper  lived  so  far  away,  in 
the  West  or  Southwest,  that  he  was  unable  to  get  his 
machine  to  them  in  time  for  the  harvest.  At  last  one 
of  his  friends  said  to  him: 

"  Why  don't  you  go  out  West  where  there's  lots  of 
room  and  where  you  can  get  land  for  your  factory 
cheap  ? " 

Cyrus  thought  well  of  the  suggestion,  but,  with  his 
usual  caution  and  thoroughness,  studied  the  map  long 
and  hard  before  making  up  his  mind.  Then,  with  only 
$300  in  his  pocket,  he  started  out  on  a  three-thousand- 
mile  trip,  traversing  a  number  of  Western  states,  at 
last  locating,  in  the  Spring  of  1847,  in  the  then  new 
town  of  Chicago,  once  Fort  Dearborn. 

Here  he  succeeded  in  inducing  one  of  the  town's 
foremost  citizens,  William  Butler  Ogden,  to  put  in 
$25,000  and  become  his  partner.  A  favorable  site  was 
selected,  a  factory  built,  and  before  long  the  McCor- 
mick  Reaper  Company  was  in  full  blast.  The  price  of 
the  machine  was  now  set  at  $120. 

Ogden  and  McCormick  were  almost  giants  physically, 
and  attracted  universal  attention  as  they  walked  down 
the  street  together.  They  were  both  fine-looking,  very 
tall,  muscular,  dominating  men,  and,  wearing  their  big, 


174     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTEY 

wide-awake  felt  hats,  presented  a  striking  appearance. 

In  1849,  however,  McCormick  quarreled  with  Ogden, 
who  was  as  strong-minded  and  stubborn  as  himself,  so 
offered  Ogden  his  $25,000  back,  plus  $25,000  —  $50,- 
000  in  all.  Mr.  Ogden  accepted  the  offer  and  pulled 
out  of  the  firm. 

Young  McCormick's  decision  to  move  West  was  the 
result  of  deep  thought  and  study,  and  his  choice  of  Chi- 
cago as  a  site  for  his  manufactory,  a  singularly  wise  and 
lucky  one.  Chicago  then  had  a  population  of  only  ten 
thousand,  but  it  was  fast  becoming  a  great  trade  point 
by  reason  of  its  location.  The  country  all  around  was 
opening  up  to  settlers  from  the  Eastern  states  and  from 
Europe,  and  the  McCormick  Eeaper  was  aiding  far- 
mers in  their  conquest  of  the  prairies  to  an  enormous 
extent. 

Soon  after  buying  out  Mr.  Ogden,  McCormick  began 
to  plan  and  develop  his  business  with  consummate  skill 
and  customary  thoroughness.  He  gave  written  guaran- 
tees with  his  machines ;  sold  them  at  a  fixed  price  which 
he  publicly  advertised;  advertised  extensively  in  the 
newspaper  —  for  he  was  a  great  believer  in  publicity  — 
appointed  agents  throughout  the  section,  and,  by  a  sys- 
tem of  fair  dealing,  established  a  reputation  for  such, 
thereby  retaining  the  good-will  of  his  customers.  Thus 
he  borrowed  money  from  the  bank  to  manufacture 
reapers,  which  he  sold  "  on  credit "  to  the  farmer,  sel- 
dom losing  any  money,  though  he  often  had  to  wait  a 
long  time.  He  trusted  the  farmer,  and  so  earned  his 
gratitude  and  good-will. 

His.  most  spectacular  advertising  methods  were  in  the 


CYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK          175 

way  of  public  tests  —  field  contests  with  rival  reapers. 
In  course  of  time  these  competitions  became  so  tre- 
mendously exciting,  rough  and  expensive  that  by  com- 
mon consent  the  various  manufacturers  abandoned  this 
kind  of  business  warfare. 

By  1850  there  were  three  thousand  McCormick  reap- 
ers in  the  wheat  fields  of  America,  and  the  next  year, 
Mr.  McCormick  exhibited  his  machine  in  England  at 
the  Crystal  Palace  Exhibition,  winning  the  first  prize 
and  also  the  County  medal.  In  1855  he  went  to  Paris, 
where  he  won  a  gold  medal  and  succeeded  in  selling 
one  of  his  reapers  to  the  Emperor,  Napoleon  III.  In 
1862  he  made  his  headquarters  in  London,  from  which 
center  he  conducted  a  vigorous  selling  campaign  through- 
out Great  Britain  and  on  the  Continent. 

By  this  time  the  McCormick  Reaper  Works,  Chi- 
cago's first  manufactory,  were  producing  more  than  six 
thousand  reapers  a  year.  By  1871  production  had 
risen  to  ten  thousand,  but  in  that  year  the  works  were 
destroyed  in  the  great  Chicago  fire.  They  were  soon 
rebuilt,  and  in  a  year  or  two  production  had  risen 
to  nearly  fifteen  thousand,  as  a  result  of  Mr.  McCpr- 
mick's  terrific  and  tireless  energy.  He  molded  men  to 
his  will  with  scarcely  an  effort,  and  dashed  all  difficul- 
ties and  obstacles  from  his  path  in  a  battering-ram 
fashion. 

He  worked  so  hard  that  occasionally  he  became  over- 
powered by  fatigue  at  most  inconvenient  moments. 
Once,  after  a  very  protracted  work-spell,  he  came  near 
missing  a  great  business  opportunity.  Always  friendly 
and  hospitable  to  inventors,  he  had  made  an  appoint- 


176     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

ment  at  his  residence  .with  a  man  named  Withington, 
who  wanted  to  talk  to  him  about  his  self-binder  inven- 
tion. He  got  home  later  than  usual  that  night  and 
terribly  tired.  Withington  called  that  evening,  and, 
just  as  he  was  beginning  to  get  warmed  up  in  his  de- 
scription of  his  really  wonderful  invention,  McCor- 
mick's  head  nodded,  and  in  a  moment  he  was  fast  asleep. 

Withington,  furious  at  what  he  imagined  was  a  de- 
liberate affront,  took  the  next  train  home. 

When  McCormick  woke  up  it  was  morning,  and  he 
was  greatly  chagrined.  So  he  sent  one  of  his  most 
trusted  men  in  hot  haste  to  explain  matters  to  Withing- 
ton and  bring  him  back  to  Chicago.  He  struck  a  bar- 
gain with  him  and  was  the  first  to  manufacture  his 
ingenious  machine,  which,  on  a  test  near  Elgin,  cut  fifty 
acres  of  wheat,  binding,  with  its  steel  arms,  every  bun- 
dle and  tying  them  with  wire,  without  a  single  hitch  or 
failure.  Each  Withington  self-binder  saved  the  labor 
of  at  least  ten  farm-hands. 

Mr.  McCormick  at  once  started  a  tremendously  ag- 
gressive selling  campaign,  and  before  long  had  dis- 
posed of  some  fifty  thousand  of  the  self-binders.  Then 
he  substituted  twine  for  wire,  manufacturing  the  twine 
at  his  factory,  now  greatly  enlarged. 

Mr.  McCormick  had  a  dogged  determination  and 
bull-dog  tenacity  that  was  simply  extraordinary.  He 
was  not  the  kind  of  man  to  supinely  submit  to  injus- 
tice, or  brook  any  interference  with  what  he  considered 
his  rights. 

He  fought  one  case,  for  example  —  his  famous  bag- 
gage case  —  in  the  courts  for  no  less  than  twenty-three 


CYEUS  HALL  McCOKMICK  177 

years,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  finally 
awarding  him  $18,000  for  nine  trunks  destroyed  by 
fire  on  the  railroad.  But  the  railroad  kept  him  waiting 
three  years  more,  before  sending  him  a  check.  The  or- 
iginal amount  he  asked  for  was  $9,000.  The  interest 
increased  it  to  $18,000  ! 

His  fight  for  his  patent  was  even  more  extraordinary. 
It  having  expired  in  1848,  he  sought  to  have  it  ex- 
tended, his  legal  battle  lasting  until  1865.  His  request 
for  an  extension  of  his  patent  was,  however,  finally  re- 
fused on  the  ground  that  it  was  of  "  too  great  public 
benefit  to  be  controlled  by  any  one  individual." 

A  wonderful  fight  began,  when,  in  1855,  he  hired 
lawyers  to  take  legal  action  against  certain  manufac- 
turers infringing  his  patent.  He  had  William  H.  Sew- 
ard,  who  later  was  Lincoln's  Secretary  of  State,  Sen- 
ator Reverdy  Johnson,  and  E.  N.  Dickerson  for  his 
counsel.  But  his  opponents  faced  him  in  the  courts 
with  an  array  of  legal  talent  almost  without  a  parallel. 
Their  lawyers  were  Abraham  Lincoln,  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  (Lincoln's  political  rival  later  on),  Edwin  M. 
Stanton,  and  three  others. 

It  was  a  battle  of  master-minds,  of  legal  giants,  and 
Stanton,  in  a  wonderfully  eloquent  and  convincing 
speech,  won  a  verdict  against  McCormick. 

Lincoln  earned  his  first  fee  —  $1,000  —  in  this  cele- 
brated harvester  case,  and  when  elected  President  ap- 
pointed Stanton  his  Secretary  of  War. 

About  the  time  the  Civil  War  was  fomenting,  Mr. 
McCormick  was  taking  a  great  interest  in  politics.  He 
did  everything  in  his  power  to  oppose  the  war  spirit, 


178      FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

publishing  powerful  editorials  in  the  Chicago  Tribune, 
a  newspaper  he  had  purchased,  and  making  many 
speeches.  His  plan  for  settling  the  controversy  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South  was  known  as  the  "  Mc- 
Cormick  plan,"  and  had  the  indorsement  of  the  New 
York  Tribune's  famous  owner  and  editor,  Horace 
Greeley. 

In  1861  it  was  said  of  Cyrus  Hall  McCormick: 
"  He  will  live  in  the  grateful  recollection  of  man- 
kind as  long  as  the  reaping-machine  is  employed  in 
gathering  the  harvest." 

It  would  indeed  be  hard  to  estimate  the  value  of  his 
invention  to  the  world  in  general  and  to  the  American 
farmer  in  particular. 


HUDSON  MAXIM 

POET,  PHILOSOPHER  AND  WIZARD  OF 
HIGH  EXPLOSIVES 


HUDSON  MAXIM 

POET,  PHILOSOPHER,  AND  WIZARD  OF 
HIGH  EXPLOSIVES 

IT  seems  strange  now,  to-day,  that  one  of  the  world's 
most  distinguished  living  scientists  and  inventors, 
Hudson  Maxim,  came  very  near  going  on  the  stage 
as  a  professional  wrestler.  It  was  on  his  first  visit  to 
New  York  that  this  almost  came  about.  He  was  a 
green  country  boy  of  only  twenty-four,  and  soon  after 
arriving  in  the  metropolis  found  himself  in  dire  need 
of  money. 

His  brother,  who  was  with  him  at  the  time,  intro- 
duced him,  as  a  wrestler,  to  some  sporting  men,  who  ar- 
ranged a  match  for  him  with  a  man  named  Flynn  who 
had  downed  all  antagonists  up  to  that  date  and  was  chal- 
lenging all  comers.  As,  however,  they  had  to  put  up 
some  money  for  the  Flynn  challenge,  they  first  tried  him 
out  with  an  English  wrestler,  whom  he  downed,  then 
with  no  less  a  celebrity  than  "  Matt "  Grace,  the  ex- 
collar-and-elbow  champion  of  the  United  States.  He 
threw  Grace  the  first  bout,  then  was  thrown  himself 
twice.  The  boy  Maxim  was  chagrined,  and  thought  the 
match  would  be  "  all  off."  But  to  his  surprise  his 
backers  were  more  than  delighted.  He  had  far  ex- 
ceeded their  expectations. 

So  the  boy  from  Maine,  who  had  already  made  a 
reputation  for  wrestling  —  and  boxing,  too  —  in  his 

181 


182  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

own  State,  decided,  like  the  Unknown  Knight  of  old  in 
the  Tournament,  to  enter  the  lists,  and  tilt  for  the  prize. 

He  went  on  the  stage  —  and  threw  the  hitherto  in- 
vincible Flynn. 

His  feat  aroused  tremendous  enthusiasm,  and  very 
attractive  offers  were  made  to  him  to  enter  the  sporting 
world  and  become  a  professional. 

But  Hudson  Maxim  had  higher  ambitions. 

"  It's  nothing  to  be  able  to  wrestle,"  he  said.  "  I'm 
going  to  do  something  else." 

He  little  knew  what,  then ! 

This  boy  from  the  Maine  backwoods,  whose  parents 
were  so  poor  that  he  couldn't  get  any  schooling  or  even 
afford  to  wear  shoes  until  after  his  ninth  year,  was  al- 
ways serious,  studious  and  reflective.  At  an  early  age 
he  began  to  think. 

"  I  remember,"  he  remarked  recently  when  recalling 
his  youthful  days,  "  that  when  twelve  years  old,  I  de- 
termined I  would  make  my  mark.  I  was  crossing  a 
field  in  which  the  grass  had  been  killed  by  the  cold, 
when  I  suddenly  thought  how  closely  man  resembled  a 
blade  of  grass  —  that  life  was  a  constant  warfare  be- 
tween the  summer  of  success  and  the  winter  of  failure 
—  and  I  then  resolved  that  I  would  learn  all  I  could 
and  qualify  for  every  kind  of  accomplishment  within 
the  range  of  my  abilities,  and  would  waste  no  time  on 
non-essentials." 

Before  many  years  had  passed  Hudson  Maxim  had 
made  good  his  resolve  and  became,  next  to  Thomas  A 
Edison,  the  world's  greatest  inventor,  as  well  as  one  of 
the  most  amazingly  versatile  men  of  his  time. 


HUDSON  MAXIM  183 

The  Maxim  family  is  of  English  and  French-Hugue- 
not descent,  and  the  man  whose  life  and  achievements 
we  are  relating,  was  born  on  February  3,  1853,  in  the 
village  of  Orneville,  Maine.  He  was  the  fourth  son  of 
a  family  of  six  boys  and  two  girls,  his  father  being  a 
miller  and  wood-turner. 

In  his  childhood  days  the  boy  Hudson  was  not  amused 
with  the  usual  fairy-tales,  or  children's  stories,  in  words 
of  one  or  two  syllables.  Instead,  his  father  would  dis- 
course to  him  of  ancient  wars,  the  great  and  bloody  bat- 
tles of  history,  legends  of  sea-fights,  calamities  on  sea 
and  land,  pirates  and  ship-wrecks,  earthquakes  and  vol- 
canoes, wonders  of  the  universe,  mysteries  of  space  and 
eternity.  This  was  the  boy's  mental  pabulum  —  the 
kind  of  stuff  he  was  interested  in  from  his  earliest 
years. 

His  father,  Isaac  Maxim,  was  of  a  philosophical  and 
inventive  turn  of  mind.  Long  before  ironclads,  he  had 
thought  out  and  suggested  a  steel  armor  for  warships 
and  had  also  experimented  with  breech-loading  and  ma- 
chine-guns prior  to  the  Civil  War.  So  it  was  from  his 
highly  gifted  though  very  poor  father  that  Hudson 
Maxim  inherited  his  extraordinary  inventive,  poetical 
and  philosophical  faculties. 

But  though  his  father  possessed  energy  and  high 
mental  qualities,  he  was  very  poor.  Hudson  often  had 
to  trudge  the  two  miles  to  the  district  school  through 
snow  waist  high.  Hats  and  shoes  were  luxuries  *his 
father  couldn't  afford.  But  the  boy  never  complained, 
for  he  was  determined  to  learn  all  he  could  —  to  get 
some  education  at  any  cost  to  bis  comfort,  In  line  with 


184  FAMOUS  LEADEKS  OF  INDUSTEY 

this  laudable  resolve  he  would  work  in  the  fields  a  few 
days,  or  do  heavy  work  in  a  granite  quarry  or  brick- 
yard so  as  to  earn  a  little  money  with  which  to  buy 
school-books,  for  in  those  days  school-books  were  not 
furnished  free  by  school-boards.  It  took  three  days  of 
hard  work  in  the  hay-field,  at  twenty-five  cents  a  day, 
to  earn  seventy-five  cents  for  a  geography  he  had  to 
have! 

But  young  Hudson  Maxim  didn't  mind  either  the 
hard  manual  work  or  the  hardships,  for  he  had  a  mag- 
nificent constitution  and  a  powerful  frame.  He  was 
getting  bigger  and  stronger  all  the  time  and  his  muscles 
were  as  hard  as  nails. 

Before  very  long,  having  got  sufficient  education  for 
the  purpose,  a  most  unusual  opportunity  presented  it- 
self, over  which,  to-day,  Mr.  Maxim  often  has  a  hearty 
laugh.  He  was  invited  to  teach  school  in  a  district 
where  the  boys  were  so  bad  that  the  trustees  couldn't 
keep  a  teacher.  The  last  one  had  been  thrown  through 
the  window,  sash  and  all.  The  young  man  accepted 
the  call  with  alacrity  and  by  thrashing  all  the  bad  boys 
one  after  the  other,  as  they  rowdied  or  "  got  fresh  " 
with  him,  he  very  soon  made  himself  respected  and 
brought  order  and  discipline  into  the  school.  Then  he 
started  in  to  teach  his  pupils  in  earnest,  teaching  him- 
self at  the  same  time,  for,  as  he  explains : 

"  I  didn't  know  much  more  than  they  did ;  but  as  I 
learned  faster  I  easily  managed  to  keep  ahead  of  my 
oksses." 

He  then  attended  the  Maine  Wesleyan  Seminary  at 
Kent's  Hill,  where  his  inclination  led  him  to  specialize 


HUDSON  MAXIM  185 

in  chemistry  and  other  sciences.  He  was  at  this  time 
unusually  proficient  in  grammar  and  rhetoric,  and  had 
a  remarkable  faculty  for  memorizing  anything  poetical. 
Many  of  the  poems  he  learned  in  boyhood  he  can  still 
repeat  word  for  word. 

His  first  scientific  discovery  was  made  in  1875,  when 
he  was  twenty-two.  In  this  year  he  published  in  a 
scientific  journal  his  theory  of  the  "  ultimate  atom," 
which  is  that  all  matter  is  one  in  the  ultimate,  and  that 
the  difference  in  the  various  forms  of  matter  and  mani- 
festations of  force  is  due  to  the  difference  in  the  rela- 
tive positions  and  motions  of  the  ultimate  atoms.  His 
hypothesis,  after  some  years,  was  generally  accepted. 

After  he  left  school  he  was,  from  1883  to  1888,  in 
the  subscription  book-publishing  business,  and  wrote 
and  published  a  book  on  penmanship  and  drawing.  He 
sold  by  subscription  nearly  half  a  million  of  these 
treatises,  making  a  very  substantial  profit,  the  money 
from  the  sale  of  the  books  giving  him  his  first  capital, 
and  enabling  him  to  begin  on  a  large  scale  his  experi- 
ments with  explosives. 

In  1888  he  left  the  publishing  business  to  begin  his 
dazzling  and  dangerous  career  of  experiment  and  in- 
vention in  the  field  of  explosives. 

His  dynamite  and  smokeless  powder  mill  at  Maxim, 
New  Jersey,  he  built-  in  1890.  Smokeless  powder  was 
his  first  invention,  and  its  enormous  value  in  warfare 
soon  became  evident.  For  troops  —  especially  sharp- 
shooters —  using  "  smokeless  "  can  fire  an  unlimited 
number  of  shots  at  the  enemy,  from  cannon  or  gun, 
without  revealing  their  whereabouts  by  puffs  of  smoke. 


186     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

The  United  States  Government  adopted  smokeless  pow- 
der, and  the  first  they  used  was  made  at  the  Maxim 
plant.  Later  the  E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  Powder 
Co.,  of  Wilmington,  Delaware,  bought  Mr.  Maxim's  in- 
ventions and  plant,  retaining  his  services  as  consulting 
engineer  and  expert. 

This  was  his  first  big  stride  up  the  ladder  of  success. 

His  next  great  invention  was  Maximite,  the  first  high 
explosive  to  be  successfully  used  in  armor-piercing  pro- 
jectiles. After  long  experiment  at  Sandy  Hook  by  the 
U.  S.  Army  the  secret  of  its  manufacture  was  bought 
by  our  Government  in  1901.  So  insensitive  to  shock 
is  Maximite  —  though  fifty  per  cent,  more  powerful 
than  ordinary  dynamite  —  that  a  projectile  charged 
with  it  can  be  fired  from  a  big  gun  with  perfect  safety 
to  the  gunner,  and  will  penetrate  the  heaviest  plate  and 
not  explode  until  set  off  by  the  delay-action  fuse. 

Mr.  Maxim  then  invented  and  developed  a  detonat- 
ing fuse  —  superior  to  any  other  —  for  high  explosive 
projectiles;  then  he  invented  Stabillite,  a  new  variety 
of  smokeless  powder.  Its  great  advantage  is  that  it 
can  be  used  as  soon  as  made,  whereas  so  many  other 
forms  of  explosives  require  months  to  dry. 

Stabillite  was  followed  by  Motorite,  which  is  used  in- 
stead of  compressed  air  as  the  motive  power  for  tor- 
pedoes. The  Motorite  is  made  in  bars  some  five  feet 
long,  and  these  bars  are  squeezed  into  steel  tubes,  and 
sealed  so  that  combustion  can  take  place  at  only  one 
end.  When  the  bar  is  ignited  water  is  forced  into  the 
chamber  and  the  gases  from  the  combustion,  plus  the 
steam,  drive  the  torpedo. 


HUDSON  MAXIM  187 

Motorite  cannot  explode,  will  burn  without  air,  and 
also  under  water.  Mr.  Maxim  put  more  time  and  ef- 
fort into  this  invention  —  Motorite  —  than  into  any- 
thing else  he  ever  attempted. 

In  addition  to  driving  torpedoes,  Motorite  can  also 
be  used  to  drive  small  torpedo-boats ;  and  a  new  type  of 
torpedo-boat  designed  by  Mr.  Maxim  can  be  driven  by 
Motorite  through  the  gun-fire  of  a  warship,  however 
severe. 

Carrying  the  explosive  in  its  warhead  this  submarine 
torpedo-boat  hurls  itself,  faster  than  a  mile  a  minute, 
against  a  battleship's  side.  The  result  is  a  terrific  ex- 
plosion, followed  by  the  destruction  of  the  hostile  ves- 
sel. Motorite  propels  this  deadly  and  invulnerable  un- 
der-sea projectile. 

In  experimenting  with  Motorite  Mr.  Maxim  spent 
$50,000 ! 

Another  of  his  inventions  was  a  process  for  the  con- 
tinuous production  of  calcium  carbide  through  heat 
developed  by  resistance  in  a  molten  carbide  conductor. 
While  experimenting  in  the  manufacture  of  calcium 
carbide,  he  discovered,  and  invented,  a  process  for  mak- 
ing tiny  diamonds. 

Mr.  Maxim  is  also  the  inventor  of  The  War  Game,  a 
game  of  skill  not  unlike  chess;  but  above  all  is  he  in- 
terested in  poetry.  His  book  on  "  The  Science  of 
Poetry  and  the  Philosophy  of  Language  "  has  won  high 
praise  from  distinguished  authors  and  scholars,  and 
given  a  number  of  new  words  to  the  English  language. 
He  has  written  not  a  little  verse  himself,  and  the  follow- 
ing is  one  of  his  most  recent  efforts : 


188     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

BRITAIN'S  GLORIOUS  PART 
BY  HUDSON  MAXIM 

Since  God  broke  chaos  into  light 
And  flung  the  stars  upon  the  night, 
And  set  the  wonder  of  the  day 
Upon  its  high,  celestial  way, 
Illuming  into  life  and  time 
The  unconditional  sublime, 
And  vast  insentience,  touched  with  plan, 
Felt  that  first  throb  whose  end  was  man, 
An  all-pervading  lightening  sense 
Has  led  on  toward  Divine  intents. 
In  darkest  hours  of  sore  travail, 
Doth  still  that  leading  sense  prevail. 

When  eviling  airs  from  Hell  were  spun, 
And  woke  the  blood-lure  of  the  Hun, 
Who  every  savagery  combined 
To  conquer  and  enslave  mankind; 
Fair  Belgium,  greatened  in  her  wrath, 
Stood  sword  and  soul  athwart  the  path; 
All  France  arose  in  battle-cry  — 
"  They  shall  not  pass,  for  here  we  die  1 " 
Still,  the  unuttered  Scourge  of  God 
Rolled  on,  and  slew  and  over-trod. 

Soon  after  the  world-war  broke  out  Mr.  Maxim  de- 
voted most  of  his  time  to  problems  of  national  defense, 
and  in  April,  1915,  lie  published  his  sensational  book, 
"  Defenseless  America/'  which  was  tremendously  influ- 
ential in  rousing  the  American  people  to  their  lack  of 
preparedness  for  war.  The  motion-picture  play,  "  The 
Battle  Cry  of  Peace/7  was  founded  on  this  book,  of 
which  Mr.  Maxim  has  given  away  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  copies. 


HUDSON  MAXIM  189 

In  addition  to  this  book  and  other  publications  on 
Preparedness,  the  noted  inventor  gave  much  thought  and 
study  to  a  new  army  ration  made  mostly  from  soya 
beans,  which  were  lately  brought  to  this  country  from 
China,  where  they  have  been  a  leading  food-staple 
since  a  time  previous  to  the  building  of  the  thousands 
of  years  old  pyramids  of  Egypt.  Though  rich  in  nu- 
tritious qualities  these  beans,  because  of  their  strong 
flavor,  have  always  been  unpalatable  to  Americans ;  but 
Mr.  Maxim  has  overcome  this  objection  through  a  spe- 
cial process  of  his  own  discovery. 

Since  the  war  broke  out  Mr.  Maxim  has  invented  a 
number  of  important  (but,  of  course,  secret)  war- 
devices.  One  of  these  is  a  method  of  protecting  ships 
from  torpedo  attack. 

Mr.  Maxim,  by  the  way,  went  to  England  in  1897 
to  sell  some  of  his  inventions  relating  to  high  explosives, 
detonating  fuses,  ordnance  for  throwing  high  explosives, 
etc.  In  a  notable  lecture  before  the  Royal  United  Serv- 
ice Institution  of  Great  Britain  he  described  and 
strongly  urged  howitzers  bigger  and  heavier,  by  two 
tons,  than  those  used  by  the  Huns  to  destroy  Liege. 
The  Teutons  evidently  profited  by  his  suggestion. 

It  was  after  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish-American 
War  in  1898  that  our  Government  bought  from  Mr. 
Maxim  the  secret  of  Maximite,  his  wonderful  high  ex- 
plosive. 

Practically  all  his  working  life  Hudson  Maxim  has 
been  a  world-leader  in  invention,  research  and  discov- 
ery relating  to  explosives  and  other  agencies  of  war- 
fare, but  though  he  has  invented  more  terrible  and 


190  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

destructive  agencies  for  use  in  war  than  any  one  else, 
he  doesn't  believe  in  fighting.     He  once  said: 

"  I  don't  believe  in  war,  I  believe  in  peace,  and  the 
day  is  coming  when  peace  will  be  universal. 

"  War  is  often  a  necessity,  and  when  it  comes  we 
want  the  best  tools  we  can  get  with  which  to  fight. 

"  The  use  of  such  terrible  explosives  as  I  have  in- 
vented makes  for  peace  more  than  all  the  homilies  that 
can  be  delivered.  The  debt  that  civilization  owes  to 
gunpowder  is  one  of  the  greatest  that  history  has  to 
record.  In  every  land  and  on  every  sea  gunpowder 
stands  guardian  over  all  accumulated  wealth  and  the 
progress  of  nations." 

Mr.  Maxim  is  of  herculean  build  and  strength,  and 
has  a  voice  of  great  depth  and  power  that  has  been 
heard  and  understood  a  mile  away.  Because  of  his 
voice  he  has  been  called  the  "  Fulminating  Philosopher." 
His  very  broad  shoulders  and  massive  limbs  tend  to 
reduce  his  stature  of  five  feet  nine  inches.  He  has  a 
great  shock  of  silver  hair,  a  beard,  and  once  wore  an 
enormous  drooping  mustache.  He  more  resembles  a 
giant  than  an  ordinary  man. 

His  dark,  glowing  eyes  betoken  the  dreamer.  And 
he  is  a  dreamer.  But  he  makes  dreams  —  trains  of 
imaginative-inventive  thought  —  come  true.  Out  of 
his  dreams  come  terrifying  inventions  that  blast  armies, 
destroy  navies,  rock  mountains  and  continents.  Armed 
with  his  inventions  men  become  Titans ! 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  though,  that  experimenting 
with  chemicals  and  inventing  high  explosives  is  easy, 
pleasant  and  safe  work.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  terribly 


HUDSON  MAXIM  191 

dangerous.  A  little  absentmindedness  or  slight  lack  of 
caution  may  cost  a  limb  or  one  or  many  lives.  The  in- 
cident that  cost  Mr.  Maxim  his  left  hand  is  a  case  in 
point.  He  was  testing  the  dryness  of  some  fulminate 
compound,  and,  forgetting  momentarily  that  he  had  a 
tiny  piece  remaining  in  his  left  hand,  he  applied  a 
match  to  the  bit  he  had  broken  off.  A  spark  flew  into 
the  hand,  and  the  next  thing  he  knew,  after  the  ex- 
plosion, was  that  his  hand  had  disappeared.  All  he 
saw  was  the  bare  bleeding  end  of  the  wristbone.  His 
face  and  clothes  were  bespattered  with  flesh  and  bone 
splinters,  and  the  next  day  his  thumb  was  found  on 
top  of  a  building  two  hundred  feet  away!  This  hap- 
pened in  the  morning,  and  it  was  evening  before  he 
could  get  a  surgeon,  as  he  had  to  walk  a  mile,  ride  in  a 
wagon,  then  in  a  train  and  finally  on  the  "  L  "  road  in 
order  to  reach  his  New  York  residence.  Only  a  man 
of  heroic  mold  could  have  gone  through  such  a  day ! 

In  ten  days  he  was  back  at  his  work  again. 

Mr.  Maxim  has  a  handsome  town  house  on  St.  Mark's 
Avenue,  Brooklyn.  His  laboratory  is  in  the  rear,  and 
he  is  assisted  in  his  experiments  by  his  charming  and 
devoted  young  wife  whom  he  married  in  1896.  Her 
maiden  name  was  Lillian  Durban,  and  she  is  a  notable 
scholar  and  linguist,  and  was  once  editor  of  a  London 
review. 

Mr.  Maxim's  country  place,  Maxim  Park,  N.  J., 
where  his  main  laboratory  is  situated,  is  on  J^ake  Ho- 
patcong,  three  miles  from  Maxim,  the  towin  where 
his  workshops  are  located  and  where  explosives  are 
made. 


192     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

Close  by  him  lives  Edwin  Markham,  the  poet,  who  is 
one  of  his  most  intimate  friends. 

Mr.  Maxim's  only  rest  or  recreation  is  a  change  of 
work.  When  he  is  not  inventing  deadly  explosives,  he 
is  delving  into  such  subjects  as  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  human  speech,  and  oratory,  poetry  and  rhetoric. 
He  works  without  any  sense  of  physical  fatigue,  for,  as 
he  says,  "  I  was  lucky  to  get  a  good,  strong  body,"  and 
he  likes  to  vary  his  work  —  do  different  things.  He 
believes  that  the  great  discovery  of  the  future  will  be 
the  harnessing  of  the  energy  stored  in  the  sun's  rays. 

He  is  a  great  believer  in  the  future  of  the  airship, 
and,  as  the  resistance  of  the  air  decreases  with  height, 
he  says  that  a  plane  at  an  altitude  of  twenty  miles 
should  travel  at  a  speech  of  one  thousand  forty-eight 
miles  an  hour!  Go  entirely  round  the  world  in  seven- 
teen hours ! 

Mr.  Maxim  is  now  sixty-six  years  old,  but  he  is  still 
working  and  experimenting,  as  hard  as  ever,  on  ord- 
nance and  explosives,  and  food  problems  —  doing  all 
he  can  to  benefit  his  fellow  men.  He  is  a  member  of 
many  learned  and  other  societies,  and  has  for  long  been 
recognized  as  one  of  the  world's  greatest  men  and  bene- 
factors. 


JOHN  H.  PATTERSON 

THE  INDUSTRIAL  GENIUS  WHOSE  RULING 

PASSION  HAS  BEEN  TO  MAKE  THINGS 

"  GO  BETTER " 


JOHN    IT.    PATTERSON 


JOHN  H.  PATTERSON 

THE  INDUSTRIAL  GENIUS  WHOSE  RULING 

PASSION  HAS  BEEN  TO  MAKE  THINGS 

"  GO  BETTER " 

THIS  is  a  story  of  a  man  who  spent  his  boyhood 
on  a  farm  in  Ohio.  He  was  one  of  eight  chil- 
dren. All  his  spare  time,  when  not  in  school, 
was  employed  doing  all  sorts  of  odd  jobs,  either  on  the 
farm  or  in  the  saw  and  grist  mills  that  his  father  owned. 

When  a  boy  he  had  one  outstanding  trait.  He  was 
always  trying  to  improve  upon  something.  He  was 
never  satisfied  with  a  thing  simply  because  it  worked. 
He  wanted  to  make  it  work  better.  One  day  he  found 
fault  with  the  big  carriage  that  hauled  the  logs  to  the 
saw.  It  didn't  seem  to  him  to  work  right.  The  saw- 
mill was  very  busy  at  the  time,  however,  and  his  father 
refused  to  stop  the  machinery  merely  to  let  the  boy 
"  meddle  "  with  it. 

But  he  was  determined.  The  thing  he  set  his  heart 
on,  he  did.  So  the  next  morning  he  hurried  down  to 
the  mill  long  before  breakfast  and  began  tinkering  with 
the  log  carriage.  When  he  was  through  and  started  it 
going,  it  worked  smoothly  without  a  hitch.  The  heavy 
logs  were  carried  to  the  saw  evenly  and  at  the  right 

speed. 

195 


196     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

"  What  have  you  done  to  it  ? "  asked  his  father 
amusedly,  that  afternoon  after  school. 

"  Made  it  go  better !  "  was  the  proud  reply.  He  had 
put  in  new  bearings,  leveled  the  track  with  a  spirit- 
level,  and  cleaned  and  oiled  everything. 

This  little  incident  was  typical  of  John  H.  Patter- 
son, the  boy.  Nothing  suited  him  unless  it  was  right, 
and  he  never  rested  until  he  had  made  it  so. 

At  last  he  left  the  old  homestead  for  college.  But, 
before  graduating,  he  served  in  the  Civil  War  as  a 
Hundred-Day  Man.  At  the  expiration  of  his  time  of 
service  he  returned  to  Dartmouth  College,  and  was 
graduated  with  the  degree  of  B.  A. 

His  first  job  on  leaving  college  was  that  of  toll-col- 
lector on  the  Miami  and  Erie  Canal.  Here  he  very 
soon  found  it  necessary  to  give  to  each  canal-boat  cap- 
tain a  receipt  for  the  money  paid  for  tolls.  This  re- 
ceipt was  a  check  on  the  captains  as  well  as  on  the  toll- 
collector.  After  Patterson  had  improved  the  system, 
it  worked  so  well  that  there  were  never  any  disputes 
or  arguments.  This  was  his  first  experience  with  re- 
ceipts. 

He  stuck  to  his  job,  added  to  his  store  of  business 
experience  and,  when  he  had  saved  a  little  money,  he 
and  his  brother  went  into  the  retail  coal  business  in 
Dayton.  At  the  start  the  youthful  firm  ran  up  against 
a  most  annoying  snag.  Many  of  their  customers  dis- 
puted their  bills,  denying  that  they  had  received  the 
quantity  of  coal  or  wood  or  lime  that  they  were  charged 
with.  The  young  coal  merchants  were  losing  money 
every  day. 


JOHN  H.  PATTERSON  197 

But  it  did  not  take  Patterson  long  to  devise  a  method 
that  would  do  away  with  these  expensive  complaints. 
Profiting  by  his  experience  as  canal  collector,  he  had 
receipts  printed  in  five  different  colors.  One  color  was 
for  soft  coal,  one  for  hard  coal,  one  for  coke,  one  for 
wood,  and  one  for  lime.  As  each  driver  had  to  get  a 
receipt  from  the  customer  upon  delivery,  this  receipt 
was  proof  that  the  customer  had  received  the  goods  he 
had  paid  for  or  been  charged  with. 

As  a  result  of  this  little  reform  the  business  doubled 
within  a  year.  The  receipts  not  only  did  away  with 
disputes  —  they  gave  the  firm  a  great  deal  of  good 
advertising.  Customers  spread  it  around  that  this 
was  a  firm  that  charged  them  only  with  what  they  had 
signed  for  and  always  gave  them  a  receipt  for  their 
money. 

After  the  two  brothers  had  been  in  the  retail  coal 
business  for  several  years,  they  put  money  into  some 
coal  mines  near  Coalton,  Ohio.  In  connection  with 
their  mines  they  ran  a  retail  store.  They  did  a  big 
volume  of  business  but,  somehow,  their  profits  were  very 
small  at  the  end  of  the  year.  It  was  evident  that  there 
was  a  leak  somewhere,  but  there  was  no  way  of  telling 
where  it  was. 

Just  about  this  time  the  partners  heard  that  a  man 
named  Jacob  Kitty  had  invented  a  machine  which  he 
called  a  cash  register.  It  was  a  clumsy  thing,  but  it 
did  not  take  John  H.  Patterson  long,  after  examining 
it,  to  decide  that  he  could  make  his  business  "  go  bet- 
ter "  with  one  of  them.  He  ordered  two.  Crude  and 
costly  as  the  machines  were  in  those  days,  the  firm  soon 


198  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

had  profits  at  Coalton  instead  of  losses.  The  leak  had 
been  stopped. 

This  was  the  turning  point  in  the  life  of  the  future 
captain  of  industry.  Where  most  men  would  have 
rested  content  that  their  business  was  benefited,  he  had 
a  vision.  He  recalled  his  initial  business  experience 
as  a  boy  on  his  father's  farm.  His  father  had  paid  the 
hired  help  partly  in  provisions  and  it  had  been  his 
duty  to  weigh  or  measure  them  out  and  to  keep  ac- 
counts. The  cellar  was  the  grocery,  the  barn  the  place 
where  grains  were  kept,  and  the  smokehouse  the  meat 
market.  But  there  was  no  system  of  receipts,  only  a 
huge  book  of  accounts  which  was  kept  in  the  hall. 
Somebody  was  always  forgetting  to  charge  a  customer 
with  the  proper  amount  of  goods.  As  a  boy  he  had  often 
been  awakened  at  night  by  his  father  and  asked  if  he 
had  charged  a  certain  person  with  goods  he  had  taken 
home. 

All  these  omissions  and  mistakes,  Mr.  Patterson  re- 
called, had  meant  a  loss  to  the  sellers,  not  the  buyers. 
It  is  human  nature  to  forget,  and  if  a  customer  is  not 
charged  with  the  goods  sold  him,  the  loss  is  the  seller's. 

So  his  memory  went  back  to  those  early  days  and  he 
realized  how  much  money  his  father  must  have  lost. 
Eight  there  he  made  up  his  mind  that  there  was  a 
wonderful  future  for  the  cash  register  if  it  could  but 
be  perfected.  The  crude  machine  had  helped  him  —  a 
perfected  machine  would  help  every  merchant.  To 
think  was  to  act,  with  Mr.  Patterson.  He  and  his 
brother  bought  out  the  concern  which  had  made  the  two 
crude  machines  they  were  using  in  their  store.  These 


JOHN  H.  PATTEESON  199 

early  machines,  by  the  way,  had  no  cash  drawers,  no 
adding  wheels,  and  did  not  print  a  receipt. 

The  brothers  had  a  tremendous  struggle  to  get  the 
business  started.  No  one  had  any  confidence  in  the 
cash  register,  and  they  could  get  no  financial  backing. 
It  was  uphill  work.  At  the  end  of  the  first  few  years, 
they  had  sunk  practically  all  their  money  and  were 
worse  off  than  when  they  started.  The  crisis  came 
when  about  $50,000  worth  of  cash  registers  were  thrown 
back  on  their  hands  because  of  poor  workmanship.  It 
was  very  discouraging,  but  Patterson  never  lost  his 
faith  in  ultimate  success.  He  was  not  the  kind  of 
man  to  give  up  anything  he  had  determined  to  do. 

He  knew  that  the  business  was  fundamentally  sound, 
for  it  supplied  a  distinct  need.  He  was  convinced,  from 
his  own  experiences,  that  losses  were  going  on  in  every 
store  in  the  country.  The  problem  was  to  perfect  his 
machine,  when  it  was  bound  to  find  a  ready  sale.  Even 
then  he  had  in  mind  the  day  when  he  would  build  a 
machine  that  would  issue  a  receipt  and  thus  give  the 
merchant  maximum  protection. 

"  For  a  long  time,"  Mr.  Patterson  stated  not  long 
ago,  "  our  inventors  were  unable  to  design  a  machine 
which  would  print  a  receipt.  It  was  the  receipts  that 
had  doubled  our  coal  business  in  a  year. 

"  I  knew  that  if  we  could  get  a  machine  which  would 
print  a  receipt  for  the  customer  and  make  a  duplicate 
record  inside  the  register,  it  would  do  as  much  for 
every  merchant  as  the  receipt  and  the  cash  register 
had  done  for  me  as  a  merchant. 

"  My  confidence  in  this  business  has  never  wavered. 


200  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

It  was  based  on  my  experience  as  a  boy  on  the  farm,  in 
the  grist  mill,  in  the  market,  in  the  canal-collector's 
office,  in  the  coal  business,  and  as  a  partner  in  a  retail 
store.  The  great  lesson  I  learned  from  each  was  the 
absolute  necessity  of  a  receipt  to  the  safe  and  sound 
conduct  of  business.  So  you  can  perhaps  appreciate 
my  enthusiasm  for  the  receipt. 

"  I  can  almost  say  that  the  idea  of  giving  and  getting 
a  receipt  is  responsible  for  the  success  of  my  business. 
With  the  obstacles,  handicaps  and  discouragements  un- 
der which  we  labored,  I  doubt  if  I  would  have  had  the 
faith  to  continue,  had  it  not  been  that  my  own  business 
experience  convinced  me  that  the  receipt-printing  cash 
register  was  needed  throughout  the  world. 

"  The  (  receipt '  idea  really  gave  me  my  start  in  busi- 
ness. What  it  did  for  me,  it  has  done  and  will  do  for 
others." 

Giving  receipts  for  money,  grain  or  goods,  is,  by  the 
way,  a  very  ancient  custom.  From  earliest  times  the 
man  who  paid  out  money  for  goods  was  given  some 
sort  of  document  to  enable  him  to  account  legally  for 
his  newly  acquired  property.  The  ancient  Egyptians 
were  very  business-like  in  this  respect.  In  our  large 
museums  you  will  find,  carefully  preserved,  receipts  for 
grain,  rent  money,  and  leases,  written  on  scrolls  as 
far  back  as  4000  B.  c. 

So  Mr.  Patterson  was  really  only  bringing  a  very  an- 
cient idea  up-to-date  when  he  perfected  his  cash  reg- 
ister so  that  it  could  print  and  issue  a  receipt.  His  suc- 
cessful exploitation  of  the  receipt  idea  resulted  in  the 
founding  of  what  has  become  one  of  the  world's  finest 


JOHN  H.  PATTERSON  201 

industrial  plants,  The  National  Cash.  Register  Com- 
pany. To-day  it  stands,  a  beautiful  and  impressive 
monument  to  man's  foresight,  upon  the  very  spot  in 
Dayton,  Ohio,  where  John  H.  Patterson,  as  a  boy, 
played  and  worked. 

Mr.  Patterson,  however,  had  never  seen  any  of  these 
ancient  instruments  of  trade.  He  arrived  at  his  con- 
clusion in  a  common  sense,  logical  way.  He  knew  that 
he  got  a  receipt  from  the  railroad, —  a  ticket.  When 
he  bought  transportation  from  the  Government  he  re- 
ceived a  stamp,  his  receipt  for  his  money.  When  he 
bought  real  estate,  he  got  a  deed.  In  fact,  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  think  of  any  business,  outside  of  stores,  in  which 
a  buyer  did  not  receive  a  receipt  for  money  spent. 
Then  why  should  not  merchants  also  give  a  receipt  for 
each  purchase  ?  Yet  very  few  did. 

But  steady  perseverance  with  the  receipt  idea  and 
effort  to  perfect  his  cash  register  at  last  resulted  in 
complete  success  and  he  became  one  of  our  greatest 
leaders  of  industry.  The  road  to  success  was  a  thorny 
one,  however,  for  it  took  him  eighteen  years  to  sell  his 
first  half-million  registers.  The  next  five  hundred 
thousand  he  sold  in  five  years,  and  now  cash  registers 
leave  his  factory  at  the  rate  of  two  every  five  minutes. 
To-day  the  plant  founded  by  Mr.  Patterson  covers  al- 
most fourteen  city  blocks,  and  the  floor  space  of  nearly 
fifty  acres  accommodates  some  six  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred workers. 

The  cash  register  of  to-day  is  an  ornament  to  any 
store  and  a  familiar  sight  the  world  over.  But  ex- 
actly what,  you  may  ask,  does  the  machine  do  ?  When 


202  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  merchant  owning  a  cash  register  closes  his  store  for 
the  day,  his  register  tells  him: 

How  much  business  each  clerk  has  done,  and  how 
many  customers  each  has  waited  on:  the  total  amount 
of  money  taken  in :  the  number  of  "  charge,"  "  rec'd 
on  acct "  and  "  paid  out "  transactions  handled  during 
the  day.  If  any  mistakes  have  been  made,  the  register 
tells  who  made  them.  It  also  prints  and  issues  a  re- 
ceipt or  prints  figures  of  the  amount  paid  or  charged 
on  an  original  and  duplicate  sales-slip.  It  also  prints 
a  permanent  record  of  each  transaction  on  a  strip  of 
paper  inside  the  register. 

Thus  at  the  end  of  the  day  the  merchant  has  before 
him,  legibly  printed  in  indelible  ink,  a  complete  record 
of  the  day's  business. 

It  was  very  different  before  the  day  of  the  cash  reg- 
ister. A  customer  might  come  in,  buy  something,  and 
ask  the  clerk  to  charge  it.  The  goods  that  went  out 
represented  money  to  the  merchant.  Yet  all  he  had  to 
show  for  that  money  was  a  little  scrap  of  paper.  If 
that  paper  was  lost,  his  profit  was  lost  besides  what 
the  goods  had  cost  him.  More  than  that,  if  the  clerk 
forgot  to  make  the  charge  entry,  there  was  absolutely 
nothing  to  show  for  the  goods  the  customer  had  taken. 
All  this  is  impossible  with  the  cash  register. 

Mr.  Patterson  is  of  Scotch-Irish  ancestry.  His  first 
American  ancestor,  his  grandfather  (whose  father  ar- 
rived in  this  country  in  1728),  was  a  colonel  in  the  War 
of  the  Revolution  and  the  founder  of  Lexington,  Ken- 
tucky. He  afterwards  owned  much  of  the  land  upon 
which  Cincinnati  now  stands,  and  finally  located  a 


JOHN  H.  PATTERSON  203 

large  tract  of  land  near  Dayton,  the  present  home  of 
the  family. 

John  H.  Patterson's  greatest  achievement  is  bring- 
ing to  perfection  the  wonderful  mechanism  known  as 
the  cash  register.  It  took  years  of  patient  study  and 
costly  experimentation.  First  one  improvement  was 
made,  then  another,  and  so  on,  until  it  almost  seemed 
that  no  further  improvement  could  be  possible.  Yet 
always  the  search  has  been  on  for  ways  of  making  the 
register  of  even  greater  service  to  the  merchant,  and 
those  who  know  Mr.  Patterson  know  that  he  will  al- 
ways continue  trying  to  make  the  machine  "  go  better." 

He  has  been  called  by  other  employers  9  "  revolution- 
ist "  because  of  his  humane  way  of  treating  his  em- 
ployees. Through  good  and  healthful  environment, 
he  has  put  beauty  and  joy  into  their  lives.  He  is,  in 
fact,  the  pioneer  among  industrial  leaders  in  social 
welfare  work,  for  he  was  one  of  the  first  large  em- 
ployers of  labor  to  discover  that  poor  working  condi- 
tions and  poor  wages  mean  poor  output  and  a  poor 
product.  "  Make  the  man  right,  and  he  will  make  the 
product  right,"  has  been  Mr.  Patterson's  motto.  So 
when  he  built  his  new  plant,  he  included  in  it  every 
possible  convenience  and  comfort  for  his  employees. 
To-day  this  model  plant  probably  has  no  superior  in  the 
world. 

Quick  failure  was  predicted  when  the  new  steel  and 
glass  palace  of  industry  was  built.  "  Why,"  chuckled 
one  critic,  "  the  boys  of  i  Slidertown  ?  >?  (the  section  of 
the  city  in  which  the  factory  was  located),  "  will  smash 
every  window  in  it." 


204     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

But  Mr.  Patterson  had  already  had  that  very  expe- 
rience with  the  so-called  "  bad  boys  "  of  Slidertown. 
And  he  had  solved  the  problem  with  characteristic 
promptness  and  success.  Reasoning  that  the  bad  boy 
was  merely  the  boy  of  energy  plus,  without  legitimate 
outlet,  he  had  provided  a  house  and  grounds  and  taught 
them  gardening,  carpentry  and  a  lot  of  other  useful 
things.  There  were  no  windows  broken  in  the  crystal 
palace  of  the  N.  C.  R. 

The  boys  have  their  playgrounds,  workgrounds,  and 
clubhouse.  They  have  formed  the  Boys'  Garden  Com- 
pany and  the  Boys'  Box  Furniture  Company,  both  in- 
corporated. The  Boys'  Box  Furniture  Company  makes 
and  sells  simple  but  attractive  furniture.  The  material 
is  packing  boxes,  furnished  by  the  N.  C.  R.  Company. 
The  Boys'  Garden  Company  raises  garden  produce  for 
their  own  homes  and  for  sale.  Both  companies  are 
self-administered  and  the  hoys  divide  the  profits.  To 
gain  admission  to  the  Boys'  Furniture  Company,  a  boy 
must  have  done  two  years  of  gardening  and  have  re- 
ceived his  diploma  from  the  Boys'  Gardening  Com- 
pany. After  a  year  at  carpentry,  he  is  eligible  for 
employment  at  the  National  Cash  Register  plant,  and 
you  may  be  sure  that  he  looks  eagerly  forward  to  en- 
tering the  "  works."  If  every  industrial  establish- 
ment in  the  land  took  the  same  steps  toward  directing 
the  energies  of  the  boys  of  their  neighborhoods  in  the 
right  direction,  there  would  be  fewer  "  bad  men  "  and 
prisons. 

There  are  many  educational  features  at  the  National 
Cash  Register  City  Club.  Owl  Classes  are  conducted 


JOHN  H.  PATTEESON  205 

in  salesmanship,  business  and  shop  practice,  etc.  All 
employees  are  encouraged  to  attend.  Then  there  is 
the  Hall  of  Industrial  Education  at  the  plant  where 
frequent  talks  are  given  employees  by  scientists,  experts 
on  right  living,  and  other  prominent  men.  These  talks 
are  given  largely  on  the  company's  time.  Mr.  Patter- 
son often  alludes  to  the  "  Schoolhouse  "  as  the  "  power- 
house "  of  the  company.  Each  noon  there  is  an  enter- 
tainment held  in  this  beautiful  hall,  usually  consisting 
wholly  or  in  part  of  moving  pictures. 

The  National  Cash  Register  Company  was  the  first 
plant  in  America  to  put  in  force  a  minimum  livable 
wage  for  girls.  The  girls  are  taught  calisthenics,  have 
their  own  clubs,  and  during  working  hours  are  provided 
with  rest  rooms  and  rest  periods.  There  are  completely 
equipped  hospital  and  dental  rooms,  with  doctors,  den- 
tists and  nurses  always  in  attendance.  Every  possible 
precaution  is  taken  to  safeguard  the  health  of  National 
Cash  Eegister  workers.  The  machines  are  guarded  by 
safety  devices,  the  air  in  all  buildings  is  changed  every 
fifteen  minutes.  The  drinking  water  is  regularly  anal- 
yzed. The  wash-rooms  are  kept  scrupulously  clean  and 
sanitary,  the  old  roller  towel  has  been  replaced  by  indi- 
vidual hand  towels,  and  common  drinking  cups  have 
given  way  to  bubbling  fountains.  Brushes  and  combs 
are  sterilized  daily.  There  are  modern  shower-baths 
and  each  employee  is  permitted  to  enjoy  one  bath  a 
week  in  winter,  and  two  each  week  in  summer  on  the 
Company's  time. 

Special  care  and  attention  is  given  to  the  health  and 
welfare  of  women  workers.  They  come  to  work  later 


206  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTBY 

than  the  men  and  quit  earlier  to  avoid  crowded  street- 
cars. The  old  style  uncomfortable  stool  has  been  re- 
placed by  the  high-back  chair  with  foot-rest.  In  rainy 
weather,  overshoes  and  umbrellas  are  furnished.  There 
is  also  a  large  library  for  the  use  of  the  employees. 

The  National  Cash  Register  has  three  large  dining- 
halls ;  one,  known  as  the  Officers'  Club,  where  the  execu- 
tives, heads  of  departments  and  others  of  the  employees 
eat,  a  huge  dining-hall  for  the  men  and  a  third  dining- 
hall  for  women  employees. 

Mr.  Patterson  has  never  confined  his  efforts  to  doing 
good  merely  for  his  own  people.  A  favorite  motto  at 
his  factory  is  "  What  is  good  for  the  National  Cash 
Register  is  good  for  other  people."  Never  has  he 
spared  effort  or  money  when  he  could  see  a  way  to 
spread  the  gospel  of  right  living.  Several  health  lec- 
tures have  been  prepared  by  the  Company  physician. 
These  are  illustrated  with  stereopticon  slides  and  mov- 
ing pictures,  and  have  been  given  in  many  towns  and 
cities.  One  of  the  health  lectures  was  especially  pre- 
pared with  the  intention  of  teaching  our  soldiers  social 
hygiene.  It  was  heartily  endorsed  by  the  United  States 
army  officials  and  was  given  to  more  than  a  million  sol- 
diers in  twenty-one  cantonments.  A  special  war  lec- 
ture, "  Wake  Up,  America !  "  was  arranged  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Patterson  and  given  all  over  the  United 
States  after  the  entrance  of  this  country  into  the  war. 
All  of  the  expense  in  connection  with  these  lectures 
was  borne  by  the  Company. 

When  war  was  declared,  Mr.  Patterson  immediately 
offered  his  own  services,  his  plant  and  all  its  resources 


JOHN  H.  PATTEESON  207 

to  the  Government.  The  record  of  the  National  Cash 
Register  during  the  war  spoke  volumes  for  the  efficiency 
and  morale  of  the  organization.  The  Company  was 
called  upon  to  make  instruments  of  precision  which  re- 
quired the  greatest  possible  exactness  in  manufacture. 
Without  any  previous  experience  along  this  line,  the 
National  Cash  Register  was,  within  a  few  short  weeks, 
putting  the  manufacture  of  these  instruments  on  a 
quantity  production  basis.  The  motto  of  the  Company 
became  "  War  first,  business  second  —  if  there  is  any 
time  for  business." 

In  1918,  Mr.  Patterson  presented  to  the  city  of  Day- 
ton, three  hundred  acres  of  land  which  is  known  as 
Hills  and  Dales  Park.  Included  in  this  magnificent 
gift  was  a  fully  equipped  country  club,  which  had 
previously  been  used  by  his  employees.  This  gift  was 
valued  at  one  million  dollars,  and  was  given  as  a  re- 
ward for  good  government  in  the  city  of  Dayton. 

When  the  great  flood  came  to  Dayton,  in  March, 
1913,  the  National  Cash  Register  plant  was  untouched, 
as  it  stood  on  high  ground.  Mr.  Patterson  immediately 
summoned  his  executive  force  and  announced :  "  I  de- 
clare the  National  Cash  Register  Company  out  of  com- 
mission and  I  proclaim  the  Citizens'  Relief  Associa- 
tion." Shortly  afterwards,  he  made  a  rough  sketch  of 
a  boat  and  ordered  that  some  be  made  immediately. 
The  first  boat  was  brought  to  the  water  in  fifteen  min- 
utes ;  after  that  the  factory  turned  out  boats  at  the  rate 
of  one  every  seven  minutes. 

The  people  of  Dayton  turned  to  Mr.  Patterson  at 
the  time  of  their  great  need.  He  headed  the  relief 


208     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

work  and  attended  to  everything  with,  such  wonderful 
efficiency  and  generalship  that  when  General  Wood  and 
Secrtary  of  War  Garrison  arrived  on  the  scene,  they 
stated  that  Patterson  had  done  all  that  could  be  done  — 
they  could  do  nothing  more.  It  was  some  time  before 
the  waters  subsided,  meanwhile  the  National  Cash  Reg- 
ister was  doing  only  relief  work,  caring  for  more  than 
twenty-five  hundred  homeless  flood  victims.  And  John 
H.  Patterson,  who  as  a  boy  had  a  passion  for  making 
things  "  go  better,"  was  acclaimed  as  the  man  who 
saved  Dayton. 

From  the  time  he  made  the  machinery  in  his  fath- 
er's saw-mill  "  go  better/'  he  had  been  applying  the 
same  rule  to  everything  he  took  hold  of.  This  passion 
for  perfection  —  for  efficiency  plus  —  is  the  secret  of 
success.  The  boy  who  makes  his  tools  better  than  any 
one  else's  and  then  uses  them  better  than  any  one  else, 
is  bound  to  succeed  in  life. 

John  Henry  Patterson  has  now  been  the  President 
of  The  National  Cash  Register  Company  for  more  than 
a  third  of  a  century.  His  name  and  "  National  Cash 
Register  "  are  linked  together  in  the  minds  of  all  civ- 
ilized peoples.  The  fame  of  the  National  Cash  Reg- 
ister has  gone  around  the  world.  National  Cash  Reg- 
ister standards  of  living  and  working  are  recognized  as 
being  synonymous  with  all  that  public-spirited  men  are 
working  for  along  industrial  lines.  In  1900,  after  an 
exhibit  at  the  Paris  Exposition  of  his  Company's  out- 
put, Mr.  Patterson  was  awarded  the  decoration  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  by  the  French  Government. 

His  career  is  one  long  record  of  a  life  devoted  to  hard 


JOHN  H.  PATTEESON  209 

work  and  useful  invention  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow 
men.  In  the  Hall  of  Industrial  Fame,  John  H.  Pat- 
terson will  always  occupy  a  prominent  niche. 


JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER 

OIL  KING  AND  WORLD'S  GREATEST 
INDUSTRIAL  LEADER 


JOHN   D AVISO X    ROCKEFELLER 


JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER 

OIL  KING  AND  WOELD'S  GEEATEST 
INDUSTEIAL  LEADEE 

JOHN  D.  EOCKEFELLEE'S  first  business  expe- 
rience was  at  the  age  of  eight,  when  he  became  the 
owner  of  a  few  turkeys.  At  once  he  was  con- 
fronted with  certain  hard  realities  of  life  that  had 
never  occurred  to  him.  He  had  no  money  —  yet  he 
had  to  supply  the  birds  with  food!  It  was  in  a  way 
an  amusing  predicament  he  was  in  —  for  his  live- 
stock threatened  to  turn  out  a  white  elephant.  His 
mother,  however,  came  to  the  rescue,  presenting  him 
with  the  curds  from  the  milk  to  feed  them.  This  solved 
the  boy's  problem,  and,  as  he  took  care  of  the  birds  him- 
self, their  keep  cost  him  nothing.  After  a  while  he 
sold  his  turkeys  in  a  businesslike  way,  the  money  he 
received  for  them  being  all  profit. 

John  was  only  a  little  boy  when  he  conducted  this, 
his  first  commercial  transaction,  but  it  was  a  valuable 
lesson  in  business,  for  he  learned  that  capital  is  neces- 
sary to  conduct  any  kind  of  business.  This  gave  him 
some  idea  of  the  value  of  money  (capital),  and  led  him 
into  habits  of  thrift.  Later  on  in  life  when  asked,  at 
his  fine  home  at  Pocantico,  how  he  managed  to  buy 
such  a  large  and  fine  estate,  he  replied: 

"  By  saving  my  pennies." 
213 


214  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

The  richest  man  in  the  world's  earliest  philanthropic 
work  was  in  lifting  the  niortgage  from  his  home  church. 
His  parents  were  Baptists  and,  from  his  earliest  age, 
John  had  taken  a  great  interest  in  church  work.  He 
was  a  constant  attendant,  and  soon  became  a  leader 
among  the  young  people.  When  only  eighteen  he  was 
elected  a  trustee  of  his  church.  For  some  years  the 
church  had  been  struggling  along  under  a  debt  of 
$2,000.  One  Sunday,  to  John's  horror,  the  minister  an- 
nounced that  the  mortgage  was  about  to  be  foreclosed, 
and  that  unless  the  congregation  quickly  raised  $2,000 
they  would  lose  their  church  building. 

The  announcement  made  a  profound  impression  upon 
the  youth,  and,  after  the  service,  he  posted  himself  at 
the  church  door,  and  buttonholed  the  worshipers  as 
they  came  out,  insisting  upon  getting  from  each  one 
of  them  a  promise  of  a  contribution  toward  canceling 
the  debt.  He  continued  his  campaign  for  some  months, 
and  a  proud  day  it  was  for  John  D.  Rockefeller  when 
he  collected  the  last  cent,  and  the  mortgage  was  burnt 
amid  general  rejoicings.  This  was,  Mr.  Rockefeller 
said  once,  the  hardest  work  he  ever  did ! 

As  a  boy  the  future  Oil  King  was  brought  up  in  the 
good  old-fashioned  way.  "  Spare  the  rod,  spoil  the 
child,"  was  his  mother's  motto,  and  she  proved  a  "  good 
deal  of  a  disciplinarian,"  upholding  the  standard  of  the 
family  with  a  birch  switch  whenever  it  showed  a  tend- 
ency to  deteriorate. 

He  was,  for  example,  once  soundly  whipped  for  some- 
thing he  didn't  do.  After  the  whipping,  when  he  was 
able  to  explain,  his  mother  said :  "  Never  mind,  we 


JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER     215 

have  started  in  on  this  whipping,  and  it  will  do  for 
the  next  time." 

On  another  occasion,  John  and  the  boys  with  whom 
he  used  to  play  went  skating  by  moonlight  —  some- 
thing he  was  forbidden  to  do.  No  sooner  had  they  got 
started  than  they  heard  a  cry  for  help,  and  found  a 
neighbor  who  had  broken  through  the  ice  and  was 
nearly  drowned.  By  pushing  a  pole  to  him,  the  boys 
saved  his  life,  restoring  him  safe  and  sound  to  his  grate- 
ful family. 

John  and  his  brother  William  thought  that  because 
of  this  episode,  the  saving  of  this  man's  life,  they 
would  be  "  let  off  "  and  not  punished  for  their  disobedi- 
ence. But,  to  their  dismay,  the  idea  proved  to  be 
erroneous !  The  birch  was  had  in  requisition  as  usual. 

In  this  way  was  the  habit  of  absolute  obedience 
sternly  drilled  into  the  Rockefeller  children. 

Mr.  Rockefeller  is  a  native  of  Tioga  County,  New 
York,  his  grandfather,  Godfrey,  coming  from  Massa- 
chusetts and  settling  in  Richford.  In  this  village  John 
Davison  Rockefeller  was  born  on  July  8,  1839.  While 
a  child  his  father,  William  A.  Rockefeller,  drifted  here 
and  there,  finally  settling  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  where  he 
built  a  house  for  the  family. 

By  this  time,  John,  his  eldest  son,  was  a  lad  of 
fourteen  and  had  had  about  the  same  boy-experience 
that  falls  to  the  lot  of  most  boys.  He  had  attended  dis- 
trict school  and  done  such  work  as  chopping  wood, 
taking  care  of  horses,  milking  cows,  weeding  the  gar- 
den, raising  chickens  and  turkeys.  He  was,  however,  a 
silent,  secretive  sort  of  boy  and  never  mixed  with  other 


216     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

youths.  He  went  about  things  in  a  somewhat  earnest 
and  solemn  way,  but,  whatever  he  had  to  do,  he  usually 
did  well. 

His  father  was  tall  and  fine-looking,  with  a  dominat- 
ing personality,  a  great  hunter  and  an  unusually  fine 
shot.  He  was,  too,  a  very  shrewd,  practical  man  and 
Mr.  Rockefeller  has  often  acknowledged  owing  a  great 
debt  to  his  father  for  training  him  in  practical  ways. 
He  was  engaged  in  numerous  enterprises,  large  and 
small,  about  which  he  used  to  talk  very  freely  to  his 
son  John,  explaining  their  significance ;  in  addition,  he 
tutored  him  in  the  principles  and  methods  of  business. 

As  a  result  of  his  early  business  training,  the  boy 
kept  a  little  book,  which  he  called  "  Ledger  A,"  in 
which  he  used  to  set  down  all  the  money  he  made  and 
all  the  money  he  spent,  and  also  all  sums  he  had  given 
away  in  charity  —  for  he  had  been  taught  to  give  reg- 
ularly a  certain  percentage  of  his  receipts  to  charitable 
objects.  This  little  ledger  is  still  in  Mr.  Rockefeller's 
possession  and  he  is  said  to  prize  it  above  rubies. 

It  was  the  intention  of  his  parents  to  send  John  to 
college,  but  he  was  anxious  to  go  to  work,  so  when  he 
reached  the  age  of  sixteen  he  was  taken  from  the  high 
school  where  he  had  almost  finished  his  course  and  sent 
to  a  commercial  college  in  Cleveland.  Here  he  was 
taught  bookkeeping  and  some  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  commercial  transactions,  and  this  training, 
though  lasting  only  a  few  months,  proved  of  great  value 
to  him. 

John's  education  being  finished,  the  next  thing  for 
him  to  do  was  get  a  job.  This  was  by  no  means  easy, 


JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER     217 

however.  "  I  tramped  the  streets  for  days  and  weeks," 
Mr.  Kockefeller  relates,  "  asking  merchants  and  store- 
keepers if  they  didn't  want  a  boy."  But  no  one  seemed 
to  need  a  boy,  and  "  very  few  showed  any  overwhelm- 
ing anxiety  to  talk  with  me  on  the  subject.  At  last  one 
man  on  the  Cleveland  docks  told  me  that  I  might  come 
back  after  the  noonday  meal." 

He  was  in  a  fever  of  anxiety  lest  he  lose  this  op- 
portunity, but  when,  betimes,  he  presented  himself  to 
his  prospective  employer,  he  said :  "  We  will  give  you 
a  chance."  This  was  on  September  26,  1855,  and  no 
word  was  said  about  pay. 

John  went  to  work  joyfully  and  with  much  energy 
and  enthusiasm.  When  January  came,  his  employers, 
Hewitt  &  Tuttle,  gave  him  $50.00  for  three  months' 
work.  These  were  his  first  real  wages  and  the  amount, 
$50.00,  seemed  to  the  boy  almost  a  fortune.  The  firm 
was  a  wholesale  produce  commission  and  forwarding 
concern  and  John's  work  was  clerical,  in  the  office, 
under  a  bookkeeper  who  was  a  fine  executive  and  dis- 
ciplinarian and  who  received  $2000.00  a  year  in  lieu 
of  the  profits  of  the  firm  of  which  he  was  a  member. 

Beginning  with  the  new  year,  John's  salary  was 
raised  to  $25.00  a  month  and  when  at  the  end  of  the 
year  the  bookkeeper  left  he  took  his  position  and  did 
the  work  at  a  salary  of  $500.00  a  year. 

As  the  firm's  business  was  general  and  very  exten- 
sive, young  Kockefeller  got  an  unusually  valuable  ex- 
perience in  business.  It  was  not  long  before  he  began 
to  audit  accounts  and  make  himself  useful  in  all  sorts 
of  business  negotiations.  In  the  passing  of  bills,  col- 


218  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

lecting  rents,  adjusting  railroad,  canal  and  other  claims, 
lie  met  all  sorts  of  people,  against  some  of  whom  he 
often  had  to  pit  his  own  shrewdness,  and  all  this  in- 
creased his  business  knowledge  and  efficiency. 

The  next  year  he  was  offered  a  salary  of  $700.00,  but 
considered  that  he  was  worth  $800.00.  When  April 
came,  this  salary  matter  not  having  been  settled,  he 
resigned  because  of  an  opportunity  he  saw  to  go  into 
the  same  business  for  himself.  This  opportunity  came 
about  in  this  wayf  Among  the  merchants  in  Cleve- 
land, whose  acquaintance  he  had  made,  was  a  young 
Englishman,  M.  B.  Clark,  who  at  this  time  wanted  to 
enter  business  for  himself  and  was  looking  for  a  part- 
ner. He  had  $2000  and  was  looking  for  a  man  with 
a  like  sum.  Young  Rockefeller  had  been  very  thrifty, 
3ut  he  had  only  saved  about  $800,  and  didn't  know  where 
to  get  the  balance.  On  talking  over  the  matter  at  home, 
however,  his  father  told  him  he  had  always  intended 
to  give  each  of  his  children  $1,000  when  they  reached 
twenty-one.  He  offered  to  give  John  his  share  then 
and  there  if  he  would  pay  him  interest  at  the  rate  of 
ten  per  cent,  until  he  was  twenty-one. 

Needless  to  say,  John  gladly  accepted  his  father's 
offer,  and  the  new  firm  of  Clark  &  Rockefeller  was 
launched.  "  It  was  a  great  thing  to  be  my  own  em- 
ployer," Mr.  Rockefeller  once  said.  "  Mentally  I 
swelled  with  pride  —  a  partner  in  a  firm  with  $4000 
capital !  " 

Young  Rockefeller  was  junior  partner  and  had 
charge  of  the  finances  and  books.  Mr.  Clark  attended 
to  the  buying  and  selling.  The  firm  at  once  began 


JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER     219 

to  do  a  large  business,  dealing  in  carload  lots  and 
cargoes  of  produce,  and  before  long  needed  more  capi- 
tal to  handle  their  growing  business. 

Mr.  Rockefeller,  as  financial  head  of  the  firm,  had 
now  to  negotiate  his  first  loan.  In  some  fear  and 
trembling  he  asked  the  president  of  the  bank  for 
$2,000.  His  reply  was :  "  All  right,  Mr.  Rockefeller, 
you  can  have  it.  Just  give  me  your  own  warehouse 
receipts;  they're  good  enough  for  me." 

The  fact  that  a  bank  was  willing  to  loan  him  $2000 
greatly  elated  the  young  merchant,  and  he  began  to 
feel  himself  of  some  importance  in  the  community. 
He  was  a  business  man ! 

Mr.  Rockefeller  now  began  to  go  out  and  solicit 
business,  something  he  had  never  done  before.  In  the 
course  of  his  drumming,  he  pretty  well  covered  Ohio 
and  Indiana.  To  the  surprise  of  the  young  partners, 
business  increased  so  rapidly  they  could  scarcely  take 
care  of  it,  and  their  first  year's  sales  amounted  to  half 
a  million  dollars. 

Of  course,  they  had  to  keep  on  borrowing  money  as 
their  business  expanded,  and  young  Rockefeller's  loans 
from  his  father  were  many.  Once  in  a  while  —  usually 
at  very  awkward  times  —  his  father  would  suddenly 
"  call  "  a  loan,  saying :  "  My  son,  I  find  I  have  got 
to  have  that  money." 

"  Of  course,  you  shall  have  it  at  once,"  John  would 
cheerfully  answer. 

His  father  did  not  need  the  money,  but  was  simply 
applying  a  wholesome  test,  and  in  a  week  or  two  would 
offer  it  back  again.  John  was  not  particularly  pleased. 


220     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

however,  with  his  father's  tests  to  discover  if  his  finan- 
cial ability  was  equal  to  such  shocks. 

But  it  was  very  difficult  in  those  days,  to  raise  money 
for  business  enterprises,  and  John  was  glad  to  pay  his 
father  the  ten  per  cent,  interest  he  charged  him.  This 
was  the  ruling  rate  in  those  days,  though  considered 
too  high  by  many. 

Meantime,  the  produce  business  of  Clark  &  Rocke- 
feller went  on  very  prosperously  and  in  the  early  six- 
ties they  organized  a  new  firm  to  refine  and  deal  in 
oil.  It  was  composed  of  James  and  Richard  Clark, 
Samuel  Andrews  and  the  firm  of  Clark  &  Rockefeller, 
who  were  the  company.  Mr.  Andrews,  who  had  mas- 
tered the  process  of  cleansing  (refining)  crude  oil  with 
suphuric  acid,  was  the  practical  man  in  the  concern  in 
charge  of  the  manufacturing.  In  1865,  however,  the 
partnership  was  dissolved  and  after  settling  the  con- 
cern's, indebtedness  and  collecting  the  money  due  it,  it 
was  decided  to  auction  off  the  plant  and  good  will. 

By  this  time,  young  Rockefeller  had  waked  up  to 
petroleum  possibilities.  With  the  intuition  of  genius, 
he  divined  in  a  flash  the  wonderful  opportunities  all 
around  him  in  the  refining  of  oil.  He  saw  the  number 
of  oil  wells  rapidly  increasing  and  a  great  and  grow- 
ing business  springing  up  in  oil.  So  he  was  seized 
with  the  desire  to  pull  out  of  his  produce  business,  buy 
this  oil  plant  and  go  into  partnership  with  Mr.  An- 
drews. 

The  day  of  the  auction  arrived  and  the  bidding 
started  in  at  $500.00.  Young  Rockefeller  at  once  bid 
$1000,  and  then  the  bidding  slowly  mounted  to  $72,- 


JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER     221 

000.  Mr.  Rockefeller,  although  he  didn't  exactly  know 
where  he  could  get  such  a  large  sum  from,  at  once  bid 
$72,500.  Upon  which,  Mr.  Clark,  who  headed  the 
other  faction,  said :  "  Fll  go  no  higher,  John ;  the  busi- 
ness is  yours." 

"  Shall  I  give  you  a  check  for  it  now  ?  "  asked  Mr. 
Rockefeller. 

To  which  Mr.  Clark  replied:  "No,  I'm  glad  to 
trust  you  for  it ;  settle  it  at  your  convenience." 

And  so,  as  Mr.  Rockefeller  so  modestly  narrates  in 
his  recent  book,  "  The  firm  of  Rockefeller  &  Andrews 
was  then  established  and  this  was  really  my  start  in  the 
oil  trade.  It  was  my  most  important  business  for 
about  forty  years  until,  at  the  age  of  about  fifty-six, 
I  retired." 

The  oil  business  turned  out  to  be  for  a  long  time  a 
precarious  and  highly  speculative  business.  The  busi- 
ness of  refining  oil  was  a  comparatively  easy  one,  and 
soon  every  Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  was  in  the  busi- 
ness. There  was,  too,  an  over-supply  of  petroleum  and 
prices  went  down  and  down.  This  over-production 
raised  some  great  problems  and  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant and  probably  most  difficult  was  to  find  foreign 
markets. 

So  the  new  oil  firm  found  itself  under  the  necessity 
of  increasing  its  capital,  of  securing  the  best  talent 
and  experience  obtainable,  of  buying  the  largest  and 
best  refining  concerns,  and  of  centralizing  the  manage- 
ment to  secure  greater  economy  and  efficiency  and  at  the 
same  time  a  wider  market. 

Notwithstanding  occasional  setbacks,  the  business  of 


222     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  enlarged  firm  grew  at  an  unexpected  rate,  neces- 
sitating branch  refineries,  storage  tanks,  agencies  and 
large  stocks  at  the  most  important  seaboard  cities  and 
later  on  came  the  tremendous  feat  of  establishing  pipe- 
lines, through  which  the  oil  was  pumped  to  markets 
at  a  great  distance.  These  pipelines,  upon  which  the 
entire  oil  business  is  dependent,  were  followed  by  other 
revolutionary  improvements  such  as  tank-cars  and  tank- 
ships,  the  latter,  vessels  especially  constructed  for  the 
transportation  of  oil  in  bulk  to  tropical  and  other  coun- 
tries. 

In  1867,  William  Rockefeller  &  Co.,  Rockefeller  & 
Andrews,  Rockefeller  &  Co.,  and  S.  V.  Harkness  &  H. 
M.  Flagler  united  in  forming  the  firm  of  Rockefeller, 
Andrews  &  Flagler,  and  this  was  really  the  starting 
point  of  the  Standard  Oil  Co.  Their  reason  for  thus 
combining  was  to  secure  greater  economy  and  efficiency 
and  a  larger  business.  As  time  went  on  and  the  vast 
possibilities  of  the  oil  industry  became  clearer,  they 
induced  others  to  put  in  money,  and  organized  the 
Standard  Oil  Co.  with  a  capital  of  one  million  dollars. 
This  capital  was  increased  in  1872  to  $2,500,000  and 
two  years  later  to  $3,500,000.  At  the  present  time  the 
total  capital  of  the  Standard  Oil  Co.  and  its  subsidiaries 
or  allied  corporations  probably  exceeds  a  billion  dollars. 

A  great  many  people  have  been  lost  in  wonder  at 
the  amazing  growth  of  the  Standard  Oil  Co.  and  some 
people  have  not  been  backward  in  accusing  it  of  un- 
fair business  methods.  Mr.  Rockefeller  himself  only 
a  few  years  ago  said  that  he  ascribed  the  success  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Co,  to  "  its  consistent  policy  of  making 


JOHN  DAVISON  ROCKEFELLER     223 

the  volume  of  its  business  large  through  the  merit  and 
cheapness  of  its  products.  It  has  spared  no  expense 
in  utilizing  the  best  and  most  efficient  method  of  manu- 
facture. It  has  sought  for  the  best  superintendents 
and  workmen  and  paid  the  best  wages." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Rockefeller  had  faith  in 
American  oil,  and  was  successful  in  bringing  together 
vast  sums  of  money  to  push  it,  against  Russian  and 
other  competition,  into  every  quarter  of  the  world. 
He  also  utilized  the  by-products  of  the  raw  oil,  build- 
ing up  a  vast  business  in  these  alone,  developing  more 
than  two  hundred  products  of  petroleum,  such  as  vase- 
line, candles,  etc.  Every  kind  of  transportation  — 
elephants,  camels,  burros,  rafts,  tank-vessels,  Chinese 
and  Indian  coolies  —  helped  in  illuminating  the  re- 
motest quarters  of  the  world  with  Standard  oil. 

About  1893  —  the  panic  year  —  Mr.  Rockefeller  be- 
came heavily  interested  in  the  iron-ore  mines  in  the 
Northwest,  later  on  building  a  fleet  of  ships  on  the 
Great  Lakes  to  market  his  ore.  Still  later  the  whole 
immense  properties  were  turned  over  to  Mr.  Carnegie's 
steel  company  at  a  good  price. 

Mr.  Rockefeller  was  led  to  use  his  brain  and  money 
in  these  iron  properties  through  the  fact  that  he  had, 
some  years  previously,  made  some  investments  in  the 
stock  of  iron  companies.  These  proving  unremunera- 
tive,  he  got  an  associate,  Mr.  Gates,  to  go  out  there  and 
report  upon  them.  The  report  being  unfavorable,  as  to 
management,  financial  condition,  etc.,  he  decided  to  buy 
out  the  owners,  and  operate  the  mines  himself.  His 
judgment  as  to  their  possibilities  was  as  usual  correct. 


224     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

"  Going  over  again  in  my  mind,"  said  Mr.  Rocke- 
feller once,  "  the  events  connected  with  this  ore  expe- 
rience that  grew  out  of  investments  that  seemed  at  the 
time  to  say  the  least,  rather  unpromising,  I  am  im- 
pressed anew  with  the  importance  of  a  principle  I  have 
often  referred  to.  If  I  can  make  this  point  clear  to  the 
young  man  —  it  may  be  benefit  to  him. 

"  The  underlying,  essential  element  of  success  in 
business  affairs  is  to  follow  the  established  laws  of  high- 
class  dealing. 

"  Keep  to  broad  and  sure  lines,  and  study  them  to 
be  certain  that  they  are  correct  ones. 

"  Watch  the  natural  operations  of  trade,  and  keep 
within  them. 

"  Don't  even  think  of  temporary  or  sharp  advantages. 
Don't  waste  your  effort  on  a  thing  which  ends  in  a 
petty  triumph  unless  you  are  satisfied  with  a  life  of 
petty  success. 

"  Be  sure  that  before  you  go  into  an  enterprise  you 
see  your  way  clear  to  stay  through  to  a  successful  end. 
Look  ahead. 

"  Study  diligently  your  capital  requirements,  and 
fortify  yourself  fully  to  cover  possible  setbacks,  because 
you  can  absolutely  count  on  meeting  setbacks. 

"  There  is  no  mystery  in  business  success  —  there 
can  be  no  permanent  success  without  fair  dealing  that 
leads  to  widespread  confidence  in  the  man  himself,  and 
that  is  the  real  capital  we  all  prize  and  work  for." 

Mr.  Rockefeller  believes  that  disinterested  service  is 
the  road  to  success.  To  the  boy  or  young  man  starting 
out  in  life,  he  says : 


JOHN  DAVISON  EOCKEFELLEE     225 

"  If  you  aim  for  a  large,  broad-gauged  success,  do 
not  begin  your  business  career,  whether  you  sell  your 
labor  or  are  an  independent  producer,  with  the  idea  of 
getting  from  the  world  by  hook  or  crook  all  you  can. 

"  In  the  choice  of  your  profession  or  your  business 
employment,  let  your  first  thought  be:  Where  can  I 
fit  in  so  that  I  may  be  most  effective  in  the  work  of  the 
world?  Where  can  I  lend  a  hand  in  a  way  most  ef- 
fectively to  advance  the  general  interests  ? 

"  Enter  life  in  such  a  spirit,  choose  your  vocation 
in  that  way,  and  you  have  taken  the  first  step  on  the 
highest  road  to  a  large  success." 

The  great  fortunes  made  in  this  or  other  countries, 
Mr.  Eockefeller  believes,  have  come  to  those  men  "  who 
have  performed  great  and  far-reaching  economic  serv- 
ices —  men  who,  with  great  faith  in  the  future  of  their 
country,  have  done  most  for  the  development  of  its 


resources." 


As  Mr.  Eockefeller  is  doubtless  the  most  successful 
business  man  that  ever  lived,  the  boy  or  young  man 
starting  out  in  life  would  do  well  to  ponder  seriously 
what  so  distinguished  an  authority  has  to  say  about 
getting  on  in  the  world.  Some  young  men  jump  from 
one  occupation  to  another  in  their  anxiety  to  make  a 
fortune  rapidly  and  in  the  end  get  nowhere,  have  noth- 
ing. Mr.  Eockefeller's  advice  is,  "  Don't  change ;  just 
stick  to  one  thing  until  you  succeed  at  it  ...  do  not 
be  discouraged,  and  save,  save,  save !  Unless  you  prac- 
tice thrift,  you  can  never  become  much.  Lay  aside 
every  dollar  you  can,  and  after  awhile  you  will  have 
enough  to  start  in  business." 


226  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

Mr.  Rockefeller  early  in  life  learned  the  value  of 
money.  He  found  that  lie  could  get  as  much  money, 
in  interest,  for  $50  loaned  at  seven  per  cent,  as  he 
could  by  digging  potatoes  for  ten  days.  "  I  thus 
learned,"  he  says,  "  that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  let  money 
be  my  slave  and  not  make  myself  a  slave  to  money.  .  .  . 
Make  good  bargains;  save  your  money  and  let  it  work 
for  you. 

"  Wed  natural  ability  to  hard  work  and  you  have  a 
combination  that  nothing  can  defeat." 

The  most  successful  men  in  our  country  have  been 
the  men  who  have  had  confidence  in  the  United  States 
and  its  resources  as  well  as  confidence  in  their  fellow 
man.  It  has  been  the  optimist  who  has  succeeded. 

Mr.  Rockefeller  is  no  exception  to  this  rule,  for  it  was 
his  faith  in  one  of  America's  greatest  natural  resources 
—  oil  —  plus  his  tremendous  energy  and  courage,  that 
placed  our  country  in  the  first  rank  of  petroleum  pro- 
ducers and  made  him  —  John  Davison  Rockefeller  — 
America's  foremost  business  man  and  leader  of  indus- 
try as  well  as  the  world's  richest  man  and  greatest  giver 
to  philanthropy. 


CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB 

STEEL  KING  AND  SUBMARINE  BOAT 
BUILDEE 


Copyright  by  Clinedinst  Studio,  Washington,  D.  C. 
CHARLES    MICHAEL    SCHVTAB 


CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB 

STEEL  KING  AND  SUBMARINE  BOAT 
BUILDER 

BOUNDLESS  are  the  opportunities  of  youth! 
At  twenty-five,  Superintendent  of  the  big  Car- 
negie Homestead  Steel  Works ! 

At  twenty-seven,  General  Superintendent  of  the  Ed- 
gar Thompson  Steel  Works,  Braddock ! ! 

At  thirty-five,  President  of  the  Carnegie  Steel  Com- 
pany ! ! ! 

At  thirty-nine,  head  of  the  greatest  corporation  ever 
formed  in  the  history  of  the  world  —  the  great  billion- 
dollar  steel  trust ! ! ! ! 

And  now  the  head  of  Bethlehem  Steel,  the  second 
largest  corporation  in  the  world ! ! ! ! ! 

A  wonderful  and  dazzling  career  for  this  poor  Penn- 
sylvania boy  who  had  to  drive  a  stage  for  his  father's 
livery  stable,  clerk  in  a  grocery  store,  and  then  drive 
stakes  at  $1.00  a  day! 

But  this  boy  had  more  than  his  share  of  grit  and 
gumption,  of  keen-mindedness.  As  the  man  who  gave 
him  his  first  real  job  at  $30.00  a  month  said:  "He's 
willing  and  bright,  and  he  wants  to  know  everything/' 

This  passion  of  his  for  knowing  everything  —  for 
understanding  and  getting  to  the  bottom  of  things  — 
led  him  rapidly  to  the  top  of  things,  as  we  shall  see. 

229 


230     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

It  was  in  the  Keystone  State,  at  Williamsburg,  that 
Charles  Michael  Schwab  —  the  future  master  of  men 
and  millions  —  was  born  on  April  18,  1862.  The 
Schwab  home  —  a  little  log  cabin  —  was  swept  away 
by  the  Johnstown  flood  in  1889,  but,  long  before 
this  event,  the  family  moved  to  the  mountain  ham- 
let of  Loretto,  where  there  was  a  convent  of  Fran- 
ciscan monks  which  had  been  founded  by  the  royal 
priest  Gallitzen  a  century  back.  In  this  picturesque 
spot  on  the  crest  of  the  Alleghenies,  at  the  College  of 
St.  Francis,  run  by  the  monks,  Charlie  studied  for  two 
years,  after  attending  the  local  school. 

Charlie  was  fond  of  mathematics,  being  especially 
attracted  to  engineering  problems.  After  leaving  col- 
lege a  full-fledged  engineer  he  naturally  expected  to 
land  a  good  position  where  his  knowledge  and  talent 
would  be  useful  and  valuable.  But  instead  he  had  to 
drive  his  father's  stage  between  Loretto  and  the  rail- 
road station,  five  miles  away. 

But  soon  his  father  moved  to  Braddock,  and  Charlie 
then  became  a  grocery-boy  in  the  Spiegelmire  store. 
Spiegelmire  had  often  ridden  in  the  stage  driven  by  his 
old  friend's  son,  and  had  made  up  his  mind,  from  his 
promptness  and  expertness,  that  the  smiling,  goodr 
humored  lad  was  no  ordinary  boy,  so  when  the  family 
located  near-by  he  offered  Charlie  Schwab  a  job. 
Though  the  boy  had  other  and  higher  ambitions  he 
cheerfully  set  to  work,  serving  customers,  running  er- 
rands, sweeping  the  store,  in  addition  making  himself 
very  agreeable  in  his  employer's  household  at  night  with 
his  piano-playing  and  voice. 


CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB  231 

Whatever  he  did,  he  did  his  best,  giving  his  em- 
ployer good  measure,  and  always  did  he  work  smilingly 
as  if  work  were  a  pleasure.  He  soon  made  lots  of 
friends,  for  everybody  liked  the  young  groceryman  with 
such  pleasant  manners  —  and  then  came  along  oppor- 
tunity. 

An  occasional  customer  was  Captain  "  Bill "  Jones, 
a  big,  man  in  those  parts,  the  superintendent  of  Andrew 
Carnegie's  Steel  Works.  One  day  when  he  dropped 
into  Spiegelmire's  for  his  plug  of  tobacco  the  youth 
screwed  up  his  courage  to  the  sticking  point  and,  as 
Mr.  Schwab  once  related : 

"  I  asked  '  Bill '  for  a  place  in  the  mill. 

"  '  Can  you  drive  stakes  ? '  he  asked. 

"  '  I  can  drive  anything !  '  I  replied." 

The  next  day  Charlie  Schwab  was  driving  stakes,  for 
a  dollar  a  day,  in  Carnegie  Brothers'  mill.  His  job 
was  carrying  chains  and  driving  pegs,  but  he  did  his 
best  as  usual,  and  in  six  months  he  was  a  gang-boss. 

Within  six  years  he  was  superintendent  of  the  works, 
then  the  largest  steel  plant  in  the  country. 

How  did  he  do  it  —  become,  at  twenty-five,  a  forge- 
master  ? 

By  amusing  Captain  Jones  and  Mr.  Carnegie  with 
his  piano  or  organ-playing  or  singing  of  Scotch  ballads  ? 

Bless  us,  no !  These  were  both  hard-headed,  shrewd 
men  who  never  employed  a  man  who  couldn't  make 
money  for  them! 

He  did  it  by  specializing  in  chemistry  and  by  apply- 
ing his  chemical  knowledge  to  the  manufacture  of  steel. 
No  one  had  dreamed  of  such  a  thing  as  the  chemistry  of 


232  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

steel  before,  and  everything  was  done  by  rule  of  thumb. 

Young  Schwab  gave1  his  nights  to  the  study  of  chem- 
istry and  before  long  he  was  conducting  important  ex- 
periments in  testing  the  quality  and  strength  of  steel 
in  various  processes. 

At  twenty-four  he  had  some  seven  thousand  men  un- 
der him,  and  had  revolutionized  the  steel  business,  for 
he  "  knew  more  about  it  than  any  other  man  in  the 
world,"  according  to  Mr.  Carnegie. 

It  is  little  wonder  that  Mr.  Schwab  advises  young 
men  to  "  marry  early."  He  himself  married  at 
twenty-one,  and  it  is  to  his  wife,  who  was  ever  urging 
him  on  to  study  of  the  chemistry  of  steel,  that  he 
largely  owes  his  preeminence  as  a  steel  manufacturer. 
After  he  had  mastered  the  chemistry  of  iron  and  its 
compounds  Superintendent  Schwab  was  able  to  inaug- 
urate processes  of  steel  manufacture  that  largely  cut 
down  costs,  and  brought  profit  where  before  there  had 
been  loss. 

Seven  years  after  entering  the  steel  industry,  the 
grocer's  boy  had  designed  and  built  the  great  Home- 
stead Works,  and  become  one  of  Andrew  Carnegie's 
partners!  In  1889  when  Captain  Jones  died,  Mr. 
Carnegie  sent  him  to  Braddock  to  succeed  "  the  great- 
est steel  man  in  the  world,"  giving  Schwab  a  stock 
interest  in  his  business  amounting  to  $50,000,  and  a 
salary  of  $50,000  a  year. 

This  was  the  rapidest  rise  for  a  boy  on  record !     Later 
on,  when  somebody  tempted  Schwab  with  a  huge  salary 
to  go  abroad,  and  he  refused,  his  loyalty  so  touched  & 
Mr.  Carnegie  that  he  made  a  new  arrangement  with 


CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB  233 

him  on  the  basis  of  a  minimum  salary  of  $1,000,000 
a  year. 

It  was  this  contract  that  seemed  to  hother  the  great 
financier,  the  late  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  when  all  the 
Carnegie  interests  were  formed  into  the  billion-dollar 
trust.  He  had  heard  of  $100,000  salaries,  but  of  mil- 
lion-dollar ones,  never! 

Schwab,  like  all  real  geniuses,  cared  little  for  money 
or  salaries.  Work  was  all  he  cared  for,  and  his  heart 
was  in  it. 

"  What's  to  be  done  about  this  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Morgan, 
significantly,  holding  out  the  contract  which  had  just 
put  $1,300,000  into  Schwab's  pockets  for  a  year's  work. 

"  This  !  "  was  Mr.  Schwab's  reply  —  and  he  crumpled 
it  up  and  flung  it  into  the  waste-basket. 

When  Mr.  Carnegie  heard  this  he  was  again  much 
touched.  "  Only  Charlie  would  have  done  that !  "  he 
said,  and  he  sent  him  bonds  in  the  new  corporation  for 
the  whole  amount  of  the  contract. 

The  Scotch  iron-master  was  a  man  of  heart,  and  he 
believed  in  rewarding  honesty  and  fidelity.  Men  who 
made  a  habit  of  subordinating  their  own  interest  to 
their  employer's,  who  had  ideals  of  work  far  above 
mere  money  rewards,  were  scarce  —  very  few  and  far 
between. 

Carnegie  was  now  out  of  the  steel  business  —  had 
been  paid  half  a  billion  dollars  for  his  interest  —  and 
Schwab,  the  boy-president,  as  he  was  called,  now  headed 
the  most  gigantic  industrial  enterprise  the  world  had 
ever  heard  of  —  the  United  States  Steel  Corpora- 
tion. 


234  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

Step  by  step  the  Loretto  boy  had  climbed  the  ladder 
of  success  from  its.  very  lowest  rung.  He  had  thrown 
himself  heart  and  soul  into  everything  he  had  to  do, 
and  given  the  best  there  was  in  him  to  every  kind  of 
work  that  came  along.  After  mastering  his  own  job, 
he  had  always  tried  to  understand  the  one  a  step  higher. 
"  The  surest  way,"  said  Mr.  Schwab  once,  "  to  qualify 
for  the  job  ahead  is  to  work  a  little  harder  than  any 
one  else  on  the  job  one  is  holding  down. 

"  To  my  mind,"  continued  the  boss  of  Bethlehem, 
"  the  best  investment  a  young  man  starting  out  in  busi- 
ness can  possibly  make  is  to  give  all  his  time,  all  his 
energy,  to  his  work  —  just  plain,  hard  work." 

Mr.  Schwab's  advice  to  the  young  man  starting  out 
in  life  is  to  go  to  the  work  he  delights  to  do.  Unless  a 
boy  takes  a  real  delight  or  pleasure  in  his  work  he 
might  just  as  well  leave  it  alone.  Scrupulous  honesty 
is  absolutely  essential  to  success,  and  fidelity  is  equally 
important. 

"  What  gave  me  my  first  start  in  life,"  said  Mr. 
Schwab  once,  "  was  my  loyalty  and  my  integrity  and  my 
standing  by  the  man  that  gave  me  my  start.  He  was 
a  good  old  Welshman,  a  Welsh  steelmaker;  a  man  of 
sturdy  character  and  a  great  man.  In  those  early  days 
I  had  a  smattering  of  chemistry  and  mechanics  and  I 
soon  discovered  that  what  my  superior  needed  was  sup- 
port and  strength  in  that  line.  I  therefore  qualified 
myself  to  do  and  know  the  things  which  he  didn't  know, 
and  soon  I  grew  to  be  very  valuable  to  him. 

"  I  took  care  to  have  him  think  that  I  was  not  a 
smart  youngster  who  knew  more  than  he  did.  And  I 


CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB  235 

loved  that  man  because  of  his  interest  in  me  and  I 
loved  to  teach  him  without  his  knowing  that  I  taught 
him  the  things  he  didn't  know,  and  when  I  grew  to 
manhood  and  into  positions  far  more  important  than 
he  occupied,  and  when  later  in  life  it  became  my  op- 
portunity to  select  the  proudest  position,  I  said  to  Mr. 
Carnegie,  '  There  is  no  position  that  you  can  offer  me 
that  will  make  me  so  proud  as  to  be  the  successor  of 
my  old  master,  Captain  Bill  Jones.' 

"  Therefore  I  attribute  my  success  in  life  to  my  loy- 
alty to  the  man  who  gave  me  my  start." 

As  Mr.  Schwab  began  life  with  an  empty  pocket  — 
without  a  cent  in  the  world  —  and  never  received  a  dol- 
lar he  did  not  work  and  work  hard  for,  his  advice  is 
worth  heeding  by  every  boy  in  the  land.  His  mar- 
velous career  is  an  inspiration  to  every  American  youth, 
for  what  one  boy  has  done  another  can  do. 

"  I  work,"  he  said  once,  "  just  for  the  pleasure  I  find 
in  work,  the  satisfaction  there  is  in  developing  things, 
in  creating.  .  .  .  The  man  who  does  not  work  for  the 
love  of  work  but  only  for  money  is  not  likely  to  make 
money  or  to  find  much  fun  in  life." 

After  being  the  President  of  the  great  Steel  Trust 
for  three  years,  and  one  of  the  busiest  men  in  the 
world,  Mr.  Schwab  suddenly  resigned.  His  leaving 
the  billion-dollar  corporation  aroused  world-wide  sur- 
prise, and  all  sorts  of  rumors  were  sent  flying  around. 
One  was  that  he  had  a  violent  quarrel  with  the  rather 
peppery  Mr.  Morgan  —  the  "  watch-dog "  of  Wall 
Street. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  caused  by  a  clash  of  prac- 


236     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTEY 

tical  and  impractical  ideas,  and  Mr.  Schwab's  action 
in  resigning  was  characteristic  of  the  man.  "  I  was 
hampered,"  explains  Mr.  Schwab,  "  by  directors  and 
other  interests.  ...  If  I  thought  a  mill  ought  to  be 
built  at  Pittsburgh  I  didn't  want  an  important  director 
telling  me  it  ought  to  be  built  at  Chicago.  If  I  had  a 
strike  involving  a  principle,  I  didn't  want  to  be  told  to 
settle  it  for  fear  it  might  affect  the  stock  market." 

So  Mr.  Schwab  quit  —  gave  up  a  salary  of  $100,000 
a  year,  and  took  life  easy  for  a  year  or  two. 

The  Jeremiahs  laughed.  "  Charlie's  all  through !  " 
they  shouted.  "  He'll  never  '  come  back  '  now."  Cer- 
tainly many  people  thought  the  same  way,  that  he  had 
reached  the  end  of  his  meteoric  flight  in  the  steel  world, 
that  his  business  life  was  over. 

But  they  were  mistaken.  Mr.  Schwab's  greatest  work 
was  to  come,  and  his  career  from  now  on  is  a  record  of 
almost  titanic  effort. 

While  at  the  head  of  the  great  United  States  Steel 
Corporation  he  had  bought  control  of  the  Bethlehem 
Steel  Works,  later  selling  out  to  the  U.  S.  Shipbuilding 
Co.,  which  failed.  He  now  bought  back  the  bankrupt 
Bethlehem  concern  and  later  went  to  Russia,  where  he 
booked  an  order  for  a  whole  navy. 

The  story  of  Bethlehem's  upbuilding  by  Mr.  Schwab 
and  his  fifteen  young  partners  is  an  amazing  one. 
Bethlehem  Steel  to-day  is  only  second  in  size  to  the  U. 
S.  Steel  Corporation  and  during  the  war  its  output  of 
war  material  —  guns,  shells,  shrapnel,  big  naval  ord- 
nance, submarines  —  exceeded  that  of  the  far-famed 
Krupp  concern  at  Essen,  Germany.  At  one  time  dur- 


CHAELES  M.  SCHWAB  237 

ing  the  war  Bethlehem  had  $400,000,000  worth  of  Al- 
lied orders  on  its  books ! 

Nothing  short  of  miraculous  has  been  the  amazingly 
swift  development  and  expansion  to  giant  size  of  this 
once  small  and  bankrupt  steel  plant.  Mr.  Schwab  thus 
explains  how  he  accomplished  this  wonder: 

"  When  I  took  hold  of  Bethlehem  the  second  time,  I 
selected  fifteen  young  men  right  out  of  the  mill  and 
made  them  my  partners.  I  believe  in  profit-sharing. 
Andrew  Carnegie  was  the  most  successful  profit-pro- 
ducer in  this  country  and  he  gave  his  employees  half 
of  his  profits  in  bonuses. 

"  Of  the  fifteen  I  selected,  not  one  has  proved  a  fail- 
ure. I  am  proud  of  that  and  proud  of  them.  One 
of  them  (E.  G.  Grace),  was  a  crane  fellow  at  $75  a 
month.  He  is  now  earning  five  times  as  much  as  any 
other  steel  employee  in  the  United  States  and  is  sev- 
eral times  a  millionaire. 

"  I  backed  Bethlehem  with  every  dollar  I  had  and 
could  borrow." 

And  he  closed  his  palace  on  the  Hudson  Kiver,  and 
camped  in  the  little  Pennsylvania  steel  town,  so  soon  to 
become  world-famous. 

It  was  in  1908  that  Mr.  Schwab  plunged  into  the 
work  of  rebuilding  Bethlehem  Steel,  spending  prac- 
tically all  his  time  day  and  night  at  the  works,  punch- 
ing the  clock  at  seven  or  seven-thirty  A.  M.,  every  day, 
just  like  any  of  his  workmen,  and  staying  "  on  the  job  " 
until  late  in  the  evening.  His  enthusiasm  was  con- 
tagious, and  his  men  —  for  whom  he  worked  out  a 
scientific  plan  of  profit-sharing  —  idolized  him  and 


238  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

backed  "  Charlie/7  as  they  all  called  him,  to  the  limit. 
Millions  upon  millions  were  spent  by  Schwab  in  im- 
provements and  in  purchase  of  other  plants,  and  in 
testing  one  invention  alone  he  spent  $15,000,000.  This 
was  the  Gray  method  of  manufacturing  structural  steel. 
It  was  a  risk,  as  everybody  else  had  turned  it  down,  but 
Schwab  believed  in  taking  risks,  and  this  one  turned 
out  a  huge  winner,  for  it  gave  Bethlehem  supremacy 
in  steel  manufacture. 

And  now  came  the  most  momentous  event  in  Mr. 
Schwab's  career,  when,  one  day  in  October,  1914,  after 
the  world-war  started,  a  messenger  boy  ran  into  his 
office  with  an  S.  O.  S.  cablegram  from  Commander-in- 
Chief  Lord  Kitchener  urgently  summoning  him  to  a 
conference  in  London.  Lord  Kitchener  had  made  Mr. 
Schwab's  acquaintance  when  he  visited  America  once, 
and  he  was,  of  course,  familiar  with  the  Bethlehem 
Works  and  their  capabilities  for  supplying  war-ma- 
terial in  an  emergency. 

This  was  Schwab's  opportunity  —  an  unparalleled 
one ;  and  ordering  a  trunk  packed  he  lost  not  a  moment 
in  getting  aboard  the  White  Star  liner  Olympic,  which, 
with  full  steam  up,  was  all  ready  to  sail  for  England. 

Six  days  later,  on  the  27th,  the  Olympic  s  wireless 
operator  got  the  news  that  close  by,  off  the  Irish  coast, 
the  great  super-dreadnought  Audacious  was  sinking, 
presumably  from  a  U-boat's  torpedo  stroke.  Instantly 
the  Olympic  changed  her  course,  proceeding  at  full  speed 
to  the  big  British  battleship's  assistance.  As  she  sunk 
beneath  the  waves,  Mr.  Schwab  succeeded  in  taking  a 
photograph  of  the  terrible  event, 


CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB  239 

After  she  sank,  the  huge  liner  had  to  remain  in  the 
vicinity  for  several  days  until  permitted  to  continue 
her  voyage,  no  one  being  allowed  to  leave  the  ship. 
Meanwhile  Lord  Kitchener  was  impatiently  awaiting 
the  steel  man.  Then  Schwab  was  taken  off  the  Olympic 
by  Admiral  Jellicoe  and  "  rushed  "  to  London  into  the 
presence  of  England's  great  fighter,  Kitchener  of 
Khartoum. 

For  several  days  England's  famous  warrior  and  the 
great  American  steel  maker  were  in  close  and  confiden- 
tial conference.  Then  cable  messages  began  to  flash 
across  the  Atlantic  and  from  that  time  on  a  period  of 
vast  and  unprecedented  activity  set  in  at  the  Bethlehem 
Steel  Works. 

"  Charlie  "  had  captured  war  contracts  for  the  Brit- 
ish War  Office  up  into  the  hundreds  of  millions ! 

The  once  bare-footed  Loretto  boy  now  overshadowed 
his  old  boss,  Andrew  Carnegie,  as  a  steel  king  and  mas- 
ter of  millions. 

He  brushed  aside,  as  being  not  worth  thinking  about, 
an  offer  of  $100,000,000  for  his  Bethlehem  stock  hold- 
ings. 

Then  Mr.  Schwab  returned  home  as  fast  as  a  great 
ship  could  travel  under  "  rush  "  orders  as  to  speed,  and 
before  long  he  was  sending  submarines,  under  their 
own  steam,  across  to  the  Allies,  and  turning  out  shells 
at  the  rate  of  a  million  a  month. 

Not  long  after  America  entered  the  war,  Mr.  Schwab 
had  war  orders  on  his  books  amounting  to  half  a  bil- 
lion dollars  for  the  United  States  Government,  and  his 


240  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

stock  in  Bethlehem  had  jumped  from  $25  a  share  to 
more  than  $700. 

The  Bethlehem  concern,  of  which  of  course  Mr. 
Schwab  is  the  head,  he  being  chairman  of  the  board 
of  directors,  has  now  about  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
thousand  employees  and  a  weekly  pay-roll  of  nearly  $3,- 
000,000.  It  has  branches  in  Chile  and  Cuba  and  owns 
vast  shipbuilding  yards. 

In  April,  1918,  Mr.  Schwab  became  a  dollar-a-year 
man  at  Washington,  where  he  was  Director  General  of 
Shipbuilding  on  the  U.  S.  Shipping  Board  Emergency 
Fleet  Corporation.  This  was  his  biggest  job  and  his 
smallest  salary;  but  he  patriotically  plunged  into  his 
duties  with  his  usual  irresistible  energy. 

One  of  his  first  acts  as  Director  General  was  to  move 
construction  headquarters  from  Washington  to  Phila- 
delphia so  as  to  be  near  the  country's  largest  shipbuild- 
ing district,  and  as  soon  as  Mr.  Schwab  started  in  to 
build  ships  for  Uncle  Sam  the  more  than  one  hundred 
and  fifty  shipbuilding  yards  in  the  United  States  began 
to  leap  up  in  production.  His  contagious  enthusiasm 
and  strong  personal  magnetism  had  an  instantaneous  ef- 
fect upon  the  ship-workers,  among  whom  the  Director 
General,  often  in  shirtsleeves  and  overalls,  used  to 
mingle,  urging  the  men  to  greater  effort  and  encourag- 
ing them. 

He  made  many  inspiring  speeches  as  he  visited  the 
various  shipyards.  At  Hog  Island,  on  one  occasion, 
two  thousand  foremen  crowded  the  hall  where 
"  Charlie  "  spoke.  One  man,  after  hearing  him,  wrote 
him: 


CHAELES  M.  SCHWAB  241 

"  I  have  just  got  home  from  the  Island  .  .  .  and  I 
feel  I  must  tell  you  how  greatly  benefited  and  inspired 
I  am,  after  your  heart-to-heart  talk  to  us.  There's 
something  wonderful,  even  mysterious,  about  the  way 
you  penetrate  and  conquer  a  man's  heart.  ...  It  cost 
me  about  $5  in  lost  overtime  and  I  had  to  beg  my 
general  foreman  to  let  me  off,  but  it  just  tickles  me  to 
death  that  I  didn't  miss  the  opportunity  of  hearing 
you  speak.  You've  pumped  enough  enthusiasm  into 
me  to  keep  me  going  for  six  months.  ..." 

Mr.  Schwab,  in  his  shirtsleeves,  the  perspiration  roll- 
ing down  his  face,  called  upon  his  hearers  to  increase 
the  riveting  record  from  fifty-four  thousand  to  two  hun- 
dred thousand  a  day  by  the  time  he  came  around  to  see 
them  again. 

"  Come  a  month  from  now,  Charlie,"  they  shouted, 
"  and  we'll  show  you !  " 

When  the  Quistconck  was  launched  Charlie  stood  at 
the  rear  of  the  Presidential  train  between  two  coatless 
shipworkers,  President  Wilson  standing  just  behind  on 
the  platform,  to  be  photographed.  "  I  am  always 
pleased  to  have  my  picture  taken  with  the  boys,"  said 
Mr.  Schwab,  as  he  smiled  into  the  camera  — 

"  For  battles  are  won  by  labor 

As  well  as  by  gleaming  blades, 
And  the  riveters'  roar  may  avail  us  more 

Than  the  splutter  of  cannonades." 

Mr.  Schwab  likes  to  get  down  among  men  and,  by 
appreciation  and  encouragement,  fill  them  with  energy 
and  confidence.  "  I  do  not  want,"  he  said,  "  to  have 


242     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

any  man  in  the  shipyards  working  for  me.  I  want  them 
all  working  with  me."  In  this  spirit  he  went  among 
them,  diffusing  good  humor  and  inspiring  men  with  his 
own  patriotism  and  exhaustless  energy. 

Needless  to  say,  long  before  the  Armistice  came, 
Charlie  Schwab  had  satisfactorily  answered  the  Nation's 
question :  "  Where  are  the  ships  coming  from  ?  " 

When  riches  and  fame  came,  one  may  be  sure  that 
Mr.  Schwab  did  not  forget  his  boyhood  home,  building 
a  new  Catholic  Church  for  Loretto  which  cost  him  $1 50,- 
000.  He  erected  another  at  Braddock,  established  an 
industrial  school  at  Homestead,  and  he  and  Mrs.  Schwab 
built  a  wonderful  home  on  Staten  Island,  New  York, 
for  orphan  and  cripple  children,  costing  $2,000,000. 

Mr.  Schwab  is  very  philanthropic  and  these  are  but 
a  few  of  his  many  benefactions. 

Music  is  Mr.  Schwab's  great  hobby,  and  he  has  in- 
dulged this  in  his  French  Chateau  on  Riverside  Drive, 
New  York  City,  by  installing  a  magnificent  pipe-organ. 
This  wonderful  palace  cost  Mr.  Schwab  $8,000,000, 
and  is  a  dream  of  artistic  beauty. 

At  his  works  at  South  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  Mr.  Schwab's 
workmen,  thanks  to  his  generosity,  are  able  to  enjoy 
good  music,  including  the  Bethlehem  Steel  band  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  pieces,  in  a  fine  music  hall  he  built 
especially  for  their  use. 

These  same  Bethlehem  Works,  brought  to  their  stu- 
pendous size  and  efficiency  by  the  energy  and  genius  of 
one  man,  constitute  to-day  our  country's  best  bulwark 
against  foreign  attack  —  America's  Gibraltar. 

Charles  Michael  Schwab's  success  has  been  an  unex- 


CHAELES  M.  SCHWAB  243 

ampled  one  in  the  world  of  work,  and  lie  is  doubtless 
the  world's  most  successful  and  most  popular  leader  of 
industry. 


ISAAC  MERRITT  SINGER 

INVENTOR  OF  THE  SEWING  MACHINE 


ISAAC    MERRITT    SINGER 


ISAAC  MERRITT  SINGER 

INVENTOR  OF  THE  SEWING  MACHINE 

AMERICA  excels  all  other  countries  in  mechanical 
inventions.  Yankee  inventiveness  —  mechani- 
cal ingenuity  —  is  proverbial,  and  to-day  Ameri- 
can shovels,  plows,  reapers,  'tractors,  clocks,  watches, 
typewriters  and  locomotives,  for  example,  have  reached 
earth's  utmost  confines. 

Inventions  that  save  labor  —  that  lessen  the  wear 
and  tear  on  human  beings  —  confer  a  benefit  upon  the 
human  race.  Conspicuous  among  such  beneficent  in- 
ventions is  the  sewing  machine,  justly  called  "  Ameri- 
ca's chief  contribution  to  civilization."  Few  inventions 
are  in  more  general  use.  There  are  few  households  in 
the  world  to-day  without  a  sewing  machine.  It  is  al- 
most as  omnipresent  as  the  clock. 

Like  most  great  inventions,  that  of  the  sewing  ma- 
chine was  the  result  of  slow  growth  rather  than  inspira- 
tion. At  the  date  when  Isaac  Merritt  Singer's  versatile 
brain  became  interested  in  the  problem  of  machine 
sewing,  it  had  been  in  process  of  evolution  for  fully  a 
century.  But  the  nearest  approach  to  Singer's  ma- 
chine, prior  to  1850,  was  the  machine  of  Walter  Hunt 
of  New  York  City,  1832-3-4. 

Hunt's  broth-      \  loniram  F.?  was  later  hired  by 

247 


248  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

George  A.  Arrowsmith,  an  enterprising  blacksmith  of 
Woodbridge,  N.  J.,  to^construct  some  sewing  machines. 
These  machines,  built  by  Hunt,  were  made  and  sold 
in  New  York  City,  and  the  failure  of  Hunt  and  Arrow- 
smith  to  get  a  patent  was  fraught  with  momentous  con- 
sequences. For  Elias  Howe,  Jr.,  a  shrewd,  wide-awake 
mechanic,  heard  of  this  machine,  and,  finding  out  that 
it  had  not  been  patented,  made  a  trivial  addition  or 
two  and  patented  it  himself. 

With  fingers  weary  and  worn, 

With  eyelids  heavy  and  red, 
A  woman  sat  in  unwomanly  rags 

Plying  her  needle  and  thread  — 
Stitch!  stitch!  stitch! 

In  poverty,  hunger  and  dirt, 
And  still,  with  a  voice  of  dolorous  pitch  — 
Would  that  its  tone  could  reach  the  Rich  — 

She  sang  the  "  Song  of  the  Shirt." 

In  a  back  street  in  Boston  one  midnight  in  August 
in  the  year  1850  two  men,  penniless  and  friendless, 
sat  on  a  pile  of  lumber.  They  were  both  sick  at  heart 
and  discouraged,  for  a  sewing  machine  they  had  worked 
on  long  and  hard  wouldn't  work. 

One  of  them,  the  inventor,  had  heard  from  across  the 
seas  the  "  Song  of  the  Shirt,"  and  it  had  roused  in  his 
breast  a  burning  desire  to  still  its  horrible  refrain  and 
carry  relief  and  help,  through  his  sewing-machine  in- 
vention, to  the  weary  seamstress.  Golden  visions  of 
wealth  came  to  him.  But  alas !  his  invention  didn't 
work.  The  two  men  were  dejectedly  discussing  the 


ISAAC  MEBEITT  SINGER  243 

machine's  failure  when  his  companion  said  to  the  in- 
ventor that  "the  loose  loops  of  thread  were  all  upon 
the  upper  side  of  the  cloth." 

In  a  flash  Singer  divined  what  the  trouble  was,  and 
back  through  the  night  went  the  two  men  to  the  shop, 
re-lighted  the  lamp,  tightened  a  little  tension  screw,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  Isaac  Merritt  Singer  had  produced 
the  first  sewing  machine  that  was  ever  practically  suc- 
cessful. 

Mr.  Singer,  shortly  before  he  died,  told  all  about 
how  he  came  to  make  his  wonderful  invention.  His 
story  in  his  own  words  is  as  follows : 

"  My  attention  was  first  directed  to  sewing  machines 
late  in  August,  1850.  I  then  saw  in  Boston  some 
Blodgett  sewing  machines,  which  Mr.  Orson  C.  Phelps 
was  employed  to  keep  in  running  order.  I  had  then 
patented  a  carving  machine,  and  Phelps,  I  think,  sug- 
gested that  if  I  could  make  the  sewing  machine  prac- 
tical I  should  make  money. 

"  Considering  the  matter  over  night  I  became  sat- 
isfied I  could  make  them  practically  applicable  to  all 
kinds  of  work,  and  the  next  day  showed  Phelps  and 
George  B.  Zieber  a  rough  sketch  of  the  machine  I  pro- 
posed to  build.  It  contained  a  table  to  support  the 
cloth  horizontally,  instead  of  a  feed  bar  from  which  it 
was  suspended  vertically  in  the  Blodgett  machine,  a 
vertical  presser-foot  to  hold  the  cloth,  and  an  arm  to 
hold  the  presser-foot  and  needle-bar  over  the  table. 

"  I  explained  to  them  how  the  work  was  to  be  fed 
over  the  table  and  under  the  presser  foot,  by  a  wheel 
having  short  pins  on  its  periphery,  projecting  through 


250     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTEY 

a  slot  in  the  table,  so  that  the  work  would  be  auto- 
matically caught,  fed,  and  freed  from  the  pins,  in 
place  of  attaching  and  detaching  the  work  to  and  from 
the  baster-plate  by  hand,  as  was  necessary  in  the  Blod- 
gett  machine. 

"  Phelps  and  Zieber  were  satisfied  that  it  would  work. 
I  had  no  money.  Zieber  offered  forty  dollars  to  build 
a  model  machine.  Phelps  offered  his  best  endeavors  to 
carry  out  my  plan  and  make  the  model  in  his  shop. 
If  successful  we  were  to  share  equally.  I  worked  at  it 
day  and  night,  sleeping  but  three  or  four  hours  out  of 
the  twenty-four,  and  eating  generally  but  once  a  day, 
as  I  knew  I  must  make  it  for  the  forty  dollars,  or  not 
get  it  at  all. 

"  The  machine  was  completed  in  eleven  days.  About 
nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  we  got  the  parts  together, 
and  tried  it.  It  did  not  sew.  The  workmen,  exhausted 
with  almost  unremitting  work,  pronounced  it  a  failure, 
and  left  me  one  by  one. 

"  Zieber  held  the  lamp,  and  I  continued  to  try  the 
machine;  but  anxiety  and  incessant  work  had  made 
me  nervous,  and  I  could  not  get  tight  stitches.  Sick 
at  heart,  about  midnight  we  started  for  our  hotel.  On 
the  way  we  sat  down  on  a  pile  of  boards,  and  Zieber 
mentioned  that  the  loose  loops  of  thread  were  on  the 
upper  side  of  the  cloth.  It  flashed  upon  me  that  we 
had  forgotten  to  adjust  the  tension  on  the  needle-thread. 
We  went  back,  adjusted  the  tension,  tried  the  machine, 
sewed  five  stitches  perfectly,  and  the  thread  snapped. 
But  that  was  enough." 

If  it  could  sew  five  stitches  it  could  sew  any  number ! 


ISAAC  MERRITT  SINGER  251 

His  invention  was,  after  all,  a  success!  And  on 
August  12,  1851,  he  got  his  patent. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  invent  something,  and  quite 
another  thing  to  sell  that  something.  Mr.  Singer  was, 
however,  confident  of  doing  this. 

Starting  with  a  capital  of  $40  borrowed  from  an- 
other man,  this  poor  but  clever  mechanician  then 
launched  upon  the  stormy  sea  of  commercial  life.  Dis- 
couragements and  disappointments  met  him  at  every 
turn.  People  were  skeptical  of  the  sewing  machine, 
and  looked  upon  it  much  as  we  looked  upon  the  Keely 
Motor  some  years  back.  Many  such  machines  had  been 
brought  out  but  all  had  been  miserable  failures,  and 
many  people  had  lost  their  money  in  such  ventures.  All 
this  Mr.  Singer  quickly  learned  to  his  sorrow  when  he 
attempted  to  sell  his  machine.  Everywhere  he  went 
he  found  that  people  were  unwilling  to  believe  that  a 
successful  sewing  machine  had  actually  been  invented 
and  built,  and  quite  often  he  was  "  shown  the  door  "  the 
moment  he  mentioned  his  business. 

He  was  advised  by  Mr.  Blodgett,  who  was  a  tailor 
by  trade  and  knew  more  about  sewing  than  Singer  pos- 
sibly could,  to  give  up  manufacturing  and  sell  terri- 
torial rights.  Blodgett  further  told  Singer  he  was  posi- 
tive that  "  sewing  machines  would  never  come  into 
use." 

"  Slow  rises  worth  by  poverty  depressed,"  and  pov- 
erty was  this  poor  mechanic  Singer's  obstacle.  He  had 
a  successful  sewing  machine,  and  a  fortune  from  its 
sale  in  sight  —  but  no  money.  He  met  discouragement 
and  rebuffs  on  every  hand,  perhaps  even  insult,  and, 


252     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

in  addition,  he  was  fought  by  rival  claimants  to  his 
invention.  But  he  had-  grit  and  determination,  and  the 
faith  of  a  genius  in  his  handiwork. 

The  undaunted  mechanic  struggled  on  in  poverty, 
bearing  up  under  many  reverses  and  disappointments, 
resolved  to  force  an  unwilling  public  to  recognize  the 
fact  that  a  successful   sewing  machine  could  be   and 
actually  had  been  made.     Slowly  he  gained  ground; 
gradually   he   obtained   access   to   the   public   ear;   by 
degrees  he  induced  people  to  at  least  give  his  machine 
a  test.     A  few  hundred  dollars  borrowed  from  friends 
expedited  the  work  of  introduction,   and,  just  as  the 
skies  seemed  to  brighten,  a  new  and  formidable  trouble 
appeared.     The  news  that  Singer  had  made  a  machine 
that  would   actually  do   continuous   stitching  brought 
Elias  Howe,  Jr.,  to  his  door  with  the  patent  he  had  ob- 
tained upon  another  man's  invention    (as  before  re- 
lated), who  claimed  that  Singer  infringed  his  patent, 
and  must  pay  him  the  sum  of  $25,000  or  quit  the  busi- 
ness.    It  did  not  take  long  for  a  man  who  had  re- 
cently borrowed  forty  dollars  to  begin  business  to  de- 
cline paying  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  tribute-money, 
and  the  consequence  was  that  Singer  found  himself 
burdened   with    litigation    that    threatened    to   swamp 
him. 

At  this  juncture  he  called  in  the  aid  of  Mr.  Edward 
Clark,  a  lawyer,  whose  recognized  legal  and  financial 
skill  were  taxed  to  the  utmost  to  prevent  the  utter  ruin 
of  the  inventor.  Mr.  Clark  became  an  equal  partner, 
and  business  was  thenceforward  conducted  under  the 
firm  name  of  "  I.  M.  Singer  &  Co," 


ISAAC  MEEEITT  SINGER  253 

Other  inventors  were  stimulated  by  Singer's  success 
to  vigorous  efforts  at  making  machines  of  practical 
utility,  and  the  consequence  was  a  series  of  infringe- 
ments upon  existing  patents,  resulting  in  a  perfect  epi- 
demic of  litigation.  Principal  among  the  litigants  was 
this  same  Elias  Howe,  Jr.,  whose  patent  enabled  him 
to  bring  all  the  rest  under  contribution,  and  this  he 
did,  suing  right  and  left  for  several  years.  The  patent 
of  1846  had  made  Howe  complete  master  of  the  sit- 
uation, enabled  him  to  dictate  the  formation  of  a  com- 
bination, by  the  terms  of  which  licenses  were  issued 
to  manufacturers  upon  the  payment  of  a  heavy  royalty 
for  each  machine  manufactured.  From  this  royalty 
Howe  received  huge  sums,  millions  of  dollars,  not  be- 
cause he  had  invented  anything  useful  to  the  world,  but 
simply  because  he  had  obtained  a  patent  upon  the  in- 
ventions of  another  man ! 

From  the  outset,  Singer  resisted,  at  great  expense, 
the  demands  and  pretensions  of  Howe,  fighting  single- 
handed  the  battle  of  the  inventors  and  the  great  world 
which  was  waiting  for  cheap  machines.  Howe  was  en- 
deavoring to  establish  a  monopoly,  strong  and  compact, 
which  meant  dear  machines  to  the  weary-fingered  women 
who  were  still  singing  the  dreary  "  Song  of  the  Shirt  " ; 
Singer  &  Co.  were  struggling  to  throw  the  business  open 
to  fair  and  honest  competition  at  moderate  prices.  For 
three  years  the  unequal  contest  was  continued  against 
the  monopoly.  All  the  other  manufacturers  had  yielded 
to  Howe  at  first,  and  were  conducting  their  business 
without  interruption  under  his  licenses.  They  viewed 
the  contest  between  Howe  and  Singer  much  as  the  tra- 


254  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTBY 

ditional  frontierman's  wife  regarded  a  terrible  struggle 
between  her  husband  and  a  grizzly,  merely  remarking 
that  "  it  didn't  make  such  odds  to  her  which  won,  but 
she  allers  loved  to  see  a  right  lively  fight."  If  Singer 
won,  all  the  others  would  reap  the  full  benefit  of  the 
victory  without  cost  to  themselves ;  if  Howe  should  win, 
they  would  be  no  worse  off  than  they  were  before,  and 
he  would  probably  cripple  their  most  formidable  com- 
petitor. Meanwhile  the  business  of  Singer  &  Co.  was 
suffering  every  possible  obstruction,  while  that  of  their 
competitors,  now  wholly  uninterrupted,  was  making 
great  strides. 

At  last,  in  May,  1854,  self-preservation  dictated  a 
withdrawal  from  such  a  contest,  and  an  agreement  was 
made  by  which  Singer  &  Co.  were  to  pay  Howe  a  roy- 
alty upon  each  machine  manufactured  by  them.  Thus 
was  taken  the  last  and  most  important  step  towards  the 
great  Sewing  Machine  Combination,  into  which  Singer 
&  Co.  were  the  last  to  enter,  and  then  only  when  driven 
into  it  for  self-preservation,  after  a  long  and  exhaustive 
drain  upon  their  means. 

By  the  year  1863,  the  annual  sales  of  Singer  machines 
amounted  to  twenty-one  thousand,  and  agencies  were 
established  in  the  principal  cities  of  the  United  States. 
In  that  year  the  firm  was  merged  into  an  incorporated 
company,  bearing  the  title  of  "  The  Singer  Manufac- 
turing Company."  By  1880  annual  sales  had  reached 
five  hundred  thousand,  and  to-day  .  .  . ! 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  history  of  the  entire  world  can 
furnish  an  instance  in  which  any  single  house,  doing 
a  legitimate  business,  has  had  a  growth  so  stupendous 


ISAAC  MEKRITT  SINGER  255 

within  an  equal  length  of  time.  The  reader  will  re- 
member that  Arrowsmith,  the  purchaser  of  Hunt's  first 
machine,  failed  to  patent  the  invention  because,  among 
other  reasons,  it  would  require  "  at  least  three  thousand 
dollars  "  to  begin  the  business  of  manufacturing  and 
selling  sewing  machines.  Little  did  he  dream  that 
within  thirty  years  a  single  company  would  have  mil- 
lions of  dollars  invested  in  the  manufacture  of  one 
form  of  sewing  machine!  Arrowsmith  urged,  for  his 
fatal  delay  in  procuring  the  patent  to  which  he  was 
then  entitled,  that  the  fees  were  so  heavy  — some  $60 ! 
And  now  one  company  spends  tens  of  thousands  of 
dollars  annually  in  the  various  forms  of  advertising! 
Its  system  of  agencies  embraces  the  entire  civilized 
world,  and  even  pushes  its  outposts  across  the  bound- 
aries into  semi-civilized  lands. 

On  every  sea  are  floating  the  Singer  machines ;  along 
every  road  pressed  by  the  foot  of  civilized  man  this 
tireless  ally  of  the  world's  great  sisterhood  is  going 
upon  its  errand  of  helpfulness.  Its  cheering  tune  is 
understood  no  less  by  the  sturdy  European  matron  than 
by  the  slender  Japanese  maiden ;  it  sings  as  intelligibly 
to  the  flaxen-haired  Kussian  peasant-girl  as  to  the  dark- 
eyed  Mexican  Seiiorita.  It  needs  no  interpreter, 
whether  it  sings  amid  the  snows  of  Canada  or  upon  the 
pampas  of  Paraguay ;  the  Hindoo  mother  and  the  Chi- 
cago maiden  are  to-night  making  the  self -same  stitch; 
the  untiring  feet  of  Ireland's  fair-skinned  daughters  are 
driving  the  same  treadle  with  the  tiny  understandings  of 
China's  tawny  daughter ;  and  thus  American  machines, 
American  brains,  and  American  money  are  bringing 


256     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  women  of  the  whole  world  into  one  universal  kin- 
ship and  sisterhood. 

Were  Singer  alive  to-day  he  would  he  lost  in  amaze- 
ment to  see  what  a  giant  oak  has  grown  up  from  his 
original  little  acorn.  He  had  the  poor  seamstress, 
"  with  fingers  weary  and  worn/7  mostly  in  mind  when 
he  toiled,  starving  meanwhile,  upon  his  epoch-making 
invention.  He  probably  never  dreamed,  for  one  thing, 
that  his  sewing  machine  would  be  developed  into  one 
for  a  vast  variety  of  manufacturing  purposes. 

At  the  present  time  more  than  two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred varieties  of  Singer's  invention  are  in  use  in  in- 
dustry driven  by  steam,  electricity,  etc.  And  a  large 
force  of  experts  is  constantly  at  work  inventing  new 
types  for  new  processes  of  manufacture. 

It  is  said  that  the  late  war  could  not  have  carried 
on  without  the  sewing  machine,  for  it  is  essential  to  the 
manufacture  of  more  than  one  hundred  and  seventy 
distinct  objects. 

Merit  is  the  only  ladder  to  success  in  the  Singer 
concern.  Both  the  present  president,  Douglas  Alex- 
ander, and  his  predecessor,  the  late  Frederick  G. 
Bourne,  started  with  the  company  as  office-boys,  and 
rose  to  the  top  through  sheer  merit. 

Such  is  the  story  of  the  sewing  machine  from  its  pal- 
try and  inauspicious  beginning.  Such  were  the  strug- 
gles and  trials  of  the  indomitable  soul  to  whose  genius 
the  world  owes  the  vast,  incalculable  and  forever  ac- 
cumulating benefits  of  this  great  invention. 


LOUIS  FRANKLIN  SWIFT 

HEAD  OF  THE  WORLD'S  LARGEST 
MEAT-PACKING  BUSINESS 


LOUIS    FRANKLIN    SWIFT 


LOUIS  FRANKLIN  SWIFT 

HEAD  OF  THE  WORLD'S  LARGEST 
MEAT-PACKING  BUSINESS 

A  HALF  a  century  ago  there  lived  at  West  Sand- 
wich, Cape  Cod,  Massachusetts,  a  youth,  whose 
savings  from  work  on  the  farm  were  eighteen 
dollars.  That  was  not  much  of  a  capital  on  which  to 
begin  business,  but  to  the  youth  in  question  it  was 
enough,  so  he  drew  it  from  its  place  of  safety  and  in- 
vested it  in  a  heifer.  Now  it  was  Widow  O'Leary's  cow 
who  kicked  over  the  lantern  that  started  the  great  Chi- 
cago fire,  but  it  was  Gustavus  F.  Swift's  heifer  that 
started  that  young  man  in  the  butchering  business  that 
was  destined  to  grow  into  one  of  Chicago's  —  and  one 
of  the  world's  —  greatest  industries.  So  do  great  oaks 
from  little  acorns  grow. 

Mr.  Swift  was  the  original  "  thrift "  man,  and  when 
a  boy  at  West  Sandwich,  started  in  to  save  his  profits 
and  put  them  back  into  his  business.  Young  Swift, 
though  a  butcher's  boy  and  then  a  butcher  on  his  own 
account,  started  life  with  a  good  education,  well  in- 
grained habits  of  industry,  plain  living  and  the  fear 
of  God.  His  father  was  a  farmer  and  his  first  Amer- 
ican ancestor,  William  Swift,  emigrated  to  this  coun- 
try in  1630,  settling  in  Sandwich,  Massachusetts.  Both 

259 


260     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

he  and  his  immediate  descendants  played  their  part  in 
the  constructive  building  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts  and,  later  on,  in  the  federation  of  the 
Thirteen  Colonies  into  the  United  States. 

Young  Gustavus  was  an  unusually  bright  and  very 
active  lad,  and  was  soon  advanced  and  quickly  mas- 
tered all  the  details  of  the  retail  meat  business.  It  was 
a  business  he  liked,  and  in  course  of  time  he  became  am- 
bitious to  have  a  butcher-store  of  his  own.  He  had  be- 
gun to  have  glimpses  of  wonderful  possibilities.  He 
dreamed  of  "  big  things  "  and  wanted  to  be  his  own 
boss. 

After  some  years  of  hard  work  and  no  play,  he  man- 
aged to  accumulate  a  small  capital,  and  opened  a  retail 
butcher  shop  at  Barnstable,  Massachusetts.  This  to 
many  people  no  doubt  looked  like  a  wild  venture  for  so 
young  a  man ;  but  he  was  successful  from  the  start  and 
branched  out  into  the  buying  and  selling  of  live-stock 
in  a  small  way  between  farmers  and  butchers  in  his  lo- 
cal territory.  Gradually  he  extended  his  operations  to 
the  then  live-stock  centers,  Brighton  and  Watertown,  on 
the  outskirts  of  Boston. 

In  1872  the  alert  and  enterprising  Gustavus  formed 
a  partnership  with  James  A.  Hathaway,  buying  and 
selling  live-stock,  with  headquarters  in  Albany,  New 
York.  Hathaway  &  Swift  were  successful  from  the 
start  and  Gustavus  F.  Swift  became  noted  for  his  keen- 
ness, foresight,  and  energy,  and  was  regarded  as  an 
authority  on  live-stock  matters. 

With  the  phenomenal  growth  of  the  West  and  its 
constantly  increasing  live-stock  development,  an  active 


LOUIS  FRANKLIN  SWIFT  261 

live-stock  market  had  grown  up  at  Chicago,  which  was 
rapidly  making  itself  felt  as  a  live-stock  center.  Being 
thoroughly  alive  to  this  growth,  the  firm  of  Hathaway 
&  Swift,  in  1875,  opened  an  office  in  Chicago  and  later 
moved  their  business  and  concentrated  their  entire  ef- 
forts at  this  point.  Soon  after  locating  on  the  shores 
of  Lake  Michigan,  Mr.  Swift  began  to  slaughter  cattle 
on  his  own  account  at  Chicago,  and,  in  the  fall  of  1875, 
began  shipping  dressed  beef  to  the  Eastern  markets. 
Previously,  all  live-stock  destined  for  Eastern  markets, 
the  then  principal  consuming  territory,  was  shipped 
alive  on  the  hoof  and  slaughtered  in  local  slaughtering 
centers  in  the  consuming  territory. 

It  was  about  this  time,  however,  that  a  novel  and 
revolutionary  device  —  the  refrigerator  car  —  was  put 
into  practical  use,  and,  while  Mr.  Swift  was  not  the 
inventor,  he  was  among  the  first  to  use  the  idea  and 
had  as  much  to  do  with  the  development  of  this  dressed- 
beef  business  as  any  one  else  in  the  trade.  This  idea 
revolutionized  the  meat  industry,  for  to  slaughter  the 
cattle  at  some  central  point  near  its  origin,  paying 
freight  on  only  dressed  beef,  was  an  economic  advant- 
age not  to  be  overlooked.  Why  pay  freight  on  so  much 
of  the  animal  that  was  uneatable  ? 

In  1878  the  firm  of  Hathway  &  Swift  was  dissolved 
and  a  new  firm  organized  which  was  called  Swift  Bros. 
&  Co.,  being  an  association  of  Gustavus  F.  and  his 
brother,  Edwin  C.  Swift.  This  new  firm  continued 
the  business  with  increasing  success.  In  the  meantime 
the  slaughtering  activities  of  Gustavus  F.  Swift  had 
also  continued  to  be  very  successful,  and,  with  its 


262  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

growth,  Mr.  Swift  determined  to  incorporate  the  busi- 
ness. So  in  1885,  Swift  &  Company  was  incorporated 
with  a  capital  of  $300,000  and  Mr.  Swift  elected  presi- 
dent thereof. 

The  phenomenal  growth  of  the  business  is  a  record 
in  itself,  and  additional  cash  was  put  in  from  time  to 
time  to  meet  successively  the  demands  for  new  and  en- 
larged facilities,  so  that  in  a  few  years  the  business 
that  was  started  with  a  capital  of  $300,000  and  one 
thousand  six  hundred  employees,  doing  a  slaughtering 
business  in  a  few  small  buildings,  has  grown  to  a  com- 
pany with  a  capitalization  of  $150,000,000,  with  over 
60,000  employees,  and  with  sales  in  excess  of  $1,200,- 
000,000  a  year ! 

Gustavus  Swift  was  a  pioneer  who  blazed  the  trail 
for  one  of  the  gigantic  industries  of  the  age.  He  was 
a  very  shrewd,  level-headed,  far-seeing  man  —  a  busi- 
ness genius  of  unusual  caliber. 

An  honest  and  sincere  man,  of  few  words  but  of  quick 
and  effective  action,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  and  a  firm  believer  in  the  Christian  faith. 

In  his  business  he  was  a  great  educator.  A  model 
of  industry  and  business  efficiency  himself,  he  was  con- 
stantly endeavoring  to  develop  a  similar  efficiency  among 
his  many  employees.  While  his  criticism  at  times 
tended  to  be  severe,  it  was  helpful,  for  his  only  inten- 
tion was  to  make  better  and  bigger  men  of  those  with 
whom  he  was  associated  in  daily  work. 

When  Gustavus  Swift  died  in  1903,  the  vast  business 
of  Swift  &  Company  fell  to  the  charge  of  Louis,  the 
eldest  of  the  eight  surviving  children  out  of  eleven. 


LOUIS  FRANKLIN  SWIFT          263 

In  the  old  fable  we  read  how  the  dying  man  called 
his  six  sons  to  his  bedside  and  told  them  to  go  to  the 
forest  and  each  bring  back  a  stick  of  wood.  When 
they  returned  each  with  his  stick,  he  told  them  to  make 
a  fagot  of  them.  This  they  also  did. 

"  Now,  take  the  fagot,"  he  said,  "  each  of  you,  one 
after  the  other,  beginning  with  the  oldest,  and  try  to 
break  it  across  your  knees." 

They  tried,  one  after  the  other,  down  to  the  young- 
est, but  not  one  of  them  could  even  bend,  let  alone 
break,  the  six  tied  sticks.  No  result  followed  their 
strenuous  tugging  and  straining. 

"  Now,  untie  the  fagot,"  said  the  dying  man,  "  and 
each  of  you  take  his  stick,  and  then  try." 

The  six  boys  each  took  his  stick,  and  each  instantly 
broke  it  across  his  knee. 

The  dying  man  smiled.  "  Now,"  he  went  on,  "  you 
will  understand  my  parting  advice,  my  sons.  Stick  to- 
gether! For,  as  you  have  seen,  in  union  there  is 
strength !  " 

It  is  this  idea  that  has  been  the  guiding  principle  of 
the  Swifts.  They  have  held  together.  Each,  when  old 
enough,  has  entered  the  business,  and,  beginning  at  the 
lowest  rung,  has,  without  favoritism,  gone  through  all 
departments  and  mounted  to  an  executive  position. 
Thus,  one  is  in  charge  of  beef  and  mutton,  one  of  pork, 
another  of  soaps,  still  another  of  branch  houses,  and 
yet  another  of  the  New  England  district,  and  so 
on. 

Each  started  in  at  the  bottom,  first  putting  in  four 
months  in  the  stock-yards,  under  a  cattle  buyer,  then 


264     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

another  four  months  with  a  hog  buyer,  and  so  on,  until 
every  branch  of  the  business  had  been  covered. 

Louis,  now  the  head  of  the  family,  was  born  at 
Sagamore,  Cape  Cod,  Massachusetts,  on  September  27, 
1861.  When  his  parents»moved  to  Chicago,  about  1875, 
Louis  attended  the  Graham  Grammar  School  and  Engle- 
wood  High  School,  but,  inheriting  his  father's  intense 
energy  and  love  of  work,  the  boy  proved  too  impatient 
to  send  to  college.  He  wanted  instead  to  go  to  work  at 
once  in  his  father's  big  packing  plant.  So  to  work  he 
went,  beginning  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder  and  working 
his  way  up  through  every  department  of  the  business, 
and  growing  with  it. 

When  his  father  died  there  was  no  one  better  fitted 
than  Louis  to  succeed  him  as  President  of  the  world's 
largest  meat-packing  business  —  an  organization  owned 
by  more  than  twenty-five  thousand  shareholders  and 
making  its  profits  on  such  a  small  margin  as  fractions 
of  cents  per  pound  of  meat  sold. 

Louis  had  worked  hard,  devoting  his  whole  time  and 
attention  to  the  business,  studying  it  in  every  detail, 
and  letting  nothing  in  the  way  of  an  economy  or  im- 
provement escape  his  attention.  He  had  frittered  away 
no  time  in  "  society "  or  in  expensive  time-wasting 
amusements,  fads  or  hobbies.  Work  was  his  hobby. 
So,  not  merely  because  he  was  the  eldest  son,  but  be- 
cause he  was  best  fitted  to  wear  it,  did  his  father's 
mantle  fall  upon  him. 

"  The  big  boss,'7  Louis  F.  is  called,  for  he  is  big, 
broad  and  tall  —  over  six  feet.  He  is  fond  of  horses 
and  of  golf,  but  has  very  little  time  to  devote  to  either. 


LOUIS  FRANKLIN  SWIFT  265 

At  his  work  usually  at  8  A.  M.  and  at  night,  when  all  his 
employees  have  gone  home,  he  and  his  brothers  are 
usually  to  be  found  at  their  desks. 

Louis  F.  Swift,  like  his  father  who  gave  so  much 
money  to  Northwestern  University,  is  also  philan- 
thropic, but,  as  he  is  a  very  reticent  man,  no  one  knows 
much  about  his  charities.  He  likes  to  be  "  let  alone  " 
and  keeps  as  silent  as  to  his  good  deeds  as  he  does  about 
his  business. 

He  is  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Mayflower  Descend- 
ants, and  of  a  number  of  leading  clubs ;  but  he  is  quiet, 
modest  and  democratic  and  wholly  absorbed  in  his  busi- 
ness, which,  under  his  leadership,  has  shown  its  most 
rapid  growth  and  expansion. 

One  of  Mr.  Swift's  beliefs  is  that  every  one  —  par- 
ticularly young  men  —  should  be  in  debt.  He  urges 
every  one  of  the  more  than  forty  thousand  employees 
of  Swift  &  Company  to  get  into  debt  and  to  keep  in 
debt,  and  he  has  organized  a  system  to  encourage  them 
in  this  and  to  show  them  how  to  do  it  profitably. 

"  If  the  debt  is  for  something  of  intrinsic  value,  it 
is  worth  while,"  he  says.  "  As  soon  as  one  thing  is 
paid  for,  buy  something  else  and  get  in  debt  again. 
Stay  in  debt  and  never  get  out.  Just  as  long  as  the 
debt  is  not  for  clothes  or  drinks  or  such  things,  but  is 
for  something  of  real,  tangible  value, —  a  house  or  a 
bond,  for  example, —  it  is  worth  saving  for  and  it  is 
worth  while. 

"  Save  —  save  something,  no  matter  how  little.  Get 
one  hundred  dollars  in  hand,  get  one  thousand  dollars  — 
you  will  find  the  second  hundred  or  second  thousand 


266     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTKY 

will  come  much  more,  easily  than  the  first  did.  The 
start  is  the  thing !  " 

May  19,  1919,  Mr.  Swift  announced  a  "  1919  Em- 
ployees Stock  Savings  Plan  "  whereby  employees  are 
given  the  right  to  purchase  stock  at  par  by  going  in 
debt  for  it. 

In  addition  to  this  plan  Swift  &  Company  has  an 
Employees'  Stock  Investment  plan  for  purchasing  stock 
at  the  market  value  and  extending  the  payments  over  a 
period  of  two  years.  This  plan  has  now  been  in  opera- 
tion for  more  than  fifteen  years. 

Love  of  country  has  been  strongly  inculcated  in  the 
children  of  Louis  F.  Swift,  and  four  of  his  five  living 
children  were  in  active  service  during  the  great  war. 
Mrs.  Bessie  (Swift)  Fernal  went  to  France  before 
America  entered  the  war,  and,  when  our  first  detach- 
ment of  marines  was  landed,  established  a  canteen  just 
behind  the  lines  so  that  she  might  serve  them  with  such 
few  little  necessities  and  luxuries  as  she  could  get  to- 
gether. Later  she  entered  the  hospital  at  Xeuilly  sur 
Seine,  Paris,  as  a  nurse,  and  for  more  than  a  year  gave 
her  devoted  attention  to  the  wounded,  returning  to  this 
this  country  in  April,  1919. 

Alden  B.  Swift  was  for  a  time  in  charge  of  a  Red 
Cross  warehouse  in  France  and  returned  to  this  coun- 
try to  enlist  in  a  Motor  Truck  Division.  He  was  in 
this  service  when  the  armistice  was  signed. 

Louis  F.  Swift,  Jr.,  saw  service  in  France  as  a  First 
Lieutenant  in  the  Artillery  Division. 

William  E.  Swift  enlisted  in  the  Naval  Aviation 
Corps,  returning  from  the  Orient  so  that  he  might  enter 


LOUIS  FRANKLIN  iSWIFT  267 

the  service,  and  was  in  training  when  the  war  ended. 
Mr.  Swift  himself,  during  the  great  conflict,  gave  his 
services  untiringly  to  the  business  of  preparing  meat 
foods  in  sufficient  supply  so  that  no  man  in  service, 
and  no  man,  woman  or  child  of  the  civilian  popula- 
tion, might  go  hungry,  and  few  of  our  leaders  of  in- 
dustry worked  harder  than  he  during  the  long  gray 
days  of  the  war. 


JOHN  WANAMAKER 

AMERICA'S  FOREMOST  RETAIL  MERCHANT 
AND  ORIGINATOR  OE  THE  DEPART- 
MENT STORE 


.TOTTX    WAXAMAKEll 


JOHN  WANAMAKER 

AMERICA'S  FOREMOST  RETAIL  MERCHANT 
AND  ORIGINATOR  OF  THE  DEPART- 
MENT STORE 

ON  a  certain  Christmas  eve  more  than  sixty  years 
ago  a  country  boy,  his  clothes  besprinkled  with 
snow,  walked  into  a  Philadelphia  jewelry  store 
to  buy  a  present  for  his  mother.  He  had  saved  a  few 
dollars  from  his  earnings  and  was  glad  to  find  a  pretty 
trinket  within  his  slender  means. 

"  I'll  take  that,"  he  said,  handing  out  the  cash  a  bit 
proudly. 

As  he  spoke  he  saw  another  shiny  something  that 
pleased  him  more,  even  though  it  was  higher  in  price. 

"  I  think  I'll  change  my  mind  and  take  this  one 
instead,"  he  said  to  the  man,  who  had  not  yet  wrapped 
the  first  selection. 

"  It's  too  late  now,"  snapped  the  jeweler.  "  You've 
bought  this  and  you  must  keep  it." 

Doubtless  it  had  been  in  stock  a  long  time,  and,  under 
customs  which  then  governed  business,  the  boy  had  no 
recourse.  He  took  what  he  did  not  want  and  said 
nothing  —  nothing  audible  ! 

But  then  and  there  he  determined  to  start  some  day 
a  store  of  his  own  where  no  one  would  have  to  stand 

such  unfair  treatment. 

271 


272  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

This  boy  was  John  Wanamaker,  who  later  on,  in  his 
little  clothing  store  in  •  Philadelphia,  was  the  first  mer- 
chant to  install  the  "  money  back  on  your  purchase  " 
system. 

One  might  enter  to-day,  any  time  between  the  hours 
of  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  six  or  seven  at 
night,  the  private  offices  in  the  Wanamaker  Building  in 
Philadelphia  and  find  there,  hard  at  work,  a  genial- 
faced,  robust  man  of  apparently  sixty-odd  years,  whose 
hair  has  only  just  begun  to  turn  gray. 

This  man  is  John  Wanamaker. 

He  has  stopped  counting  his  years,  and  he  seems  to 
have  stopped  growing  old,  but  he  was  born  before  rail- 
roads in  this  country  had  made  much  progress;  be- 
fore the  time  of  the  perfected  telegraph  and  telephone; 
the  electric  light ;  the  wireless ;  the  typewriter  and  even 
the  steam-printing  press. 

His  store  was  the  first  store  ever  lighted  by  elec- 
tricity, and  this  event  happened  the  night  after  Christ- 
mas, 1878.  In  1909  flying  machines  were  on  sale  in 
his  immense  emporium. 

John  Wanamaker,  America's  greatest  retail  mer- 
chant, was  born  on  July  11,  1838,  in  the  southern  part 
of  Philadelphia,  when  there  were  few  houses  in  that 
section.  His  father,  Nelson,  was  a  brick-maker,  his 
grandfather,  John,  a  plain  farmer,  and  the  family  orig- 
inally came  to  America  about  the  time  of  the  landing 
of  William  Penn,  the  founder  of  Pennsylvania.  His 
mother's  ancestors,  who  came  over  about  the  same  time, 
were  French  Huguenots. 

John's  father  being  a  brick-maker,  the  boy's  first  work 


JOHN  WANAMAKEE  273 

was  "  turning  bricks  "  and  doing  odd  jobs  around  the 
yard.  He  was  the  oldest  of  seven  children,  and,  as 
his  parents  were  poor,  he  had  to  leave  school  early  in 
his  boyhood  days  to  earn  a  living  for  himself. 

He  was  fourteen  when  he  obtained  his  first  employ- 
ment as  errand  boy  in  the  publishing  house  of  Trout- 
man  &  Hayes,  on  Market  Street,  at  a  salary  of  $1.25  a 
week. 

After  a  while  his  family  moved  to  Kosciusko  County, 
Indiana,  but  returned  to  Philadelphia  in  1856,  when 
John  obtained  a  position  in  the  retail  clothing  store  of 
Barclay  Lippincott  at  $1.50  a  week. 

Then  he  entered  journalism  for  a  brief  space,  pub- 
lishing a  small  paper  called  Everybody's  Journal,  finally 
taking  a  position,  at  higher  wages  than  he  had  yet  re- 
ceived, with  Col.  Joseph  M.  Bennett,  proprietor  of  the 
Tower  Hall  Clothing  Store,  at  that  time  the  largest 
business  of  the  kind  in  the  city.  About  this  period  in 
his  career  the  young  man  began  to  put  personality  into 
his  work,  with  the  result  that  customers  at  "  Tower 
Hall  "  began  to  ask  —  when  they  came  into  the  store  — 
"  Where  is  John  ?  "  and  insist  that  he;  and  no  one  else, 
wait  upon  them.  He  had  pleasant,  courteous  manners, 
and  character,  and  every  one  had  confidence  in  the 
young,  tall  and  good-looking  salesman  and  liked  him. 
His  customers  rapidly  increased,  his  acquaintance  too, 
and  he  gained  his  employer's  confidence  and  esteem. 
He  succeeded,  because  he  liked  his  work,  and  put  his 
whole  heart  and  soul  into  it. 

Colonel  Bennett  delighted  in  telling  his  friends  that 
"  John  is  the  most  ambitious  boy  I  ever  saw.  I  used 


274  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTEY 

to  take  him  to  lunch  with  me  and  he  would  tell  me 
how  he  was  going  to  be  a  great  merchant.  He  was  al- 
ways organizing  something.  He  seemed  to  be  a  nat- 
ural-born organizer.  This  faculty  is  probably  account- 
able for  his  great  success." 

He  had  great  perseverance  and  tenacity.  A  school- 
mate said  of  John  Wanamaker  that,  when  any  difficult 
problem  in  arithmetic  was  to  be  solved,  it  was  the  rule 
to  remain  after  school  hours,  and  sometimes  the  master 
would  become  weary  in  trying  to  solve  it ;  but  John  was 
not  so  easily  discouraged ;  he  would  keep  the  master  in 
until  he  was  satisfied  with  the  result.  In  this  way  he 
distanced  all  the  other  pupils.  While  he  attended 
school,  little  time  was  afforded  him  for  play  like  other 
boys,  as  he  worked  in  his  father's  brick-yard  "  turning 
up  "  the  bricks. 

This  close  application  in  one  so  young  caused  him 
to  grow  up  tall  and  thin,  and  his  faithful  attention  to 
his  new  employments  told  severely  on  his  general  health, 
causing  his  friends  to  think  that  he  was  going  into  a 
decline,  and,  at  the  suggestion  of  his  physician,  in  1858, 
he  started  for  Minnesota. 

His  health  improving,  he  returned  to  Philadelphia 
the  same  year,  when  he  was  elected  the  first  salaried 
secretary  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  in 
America,  which  organization  was  then  in  its  infancy. 
He  was  one  of  the  first  members  of  the  Philadelphia 
Association,  and  afterwards  the  chairman  of  the  Inter- 
national Committee. 

One  Sunday,  while  passing  the  Chambers  Presby- 
terian Church,  at  the  corner  of  Broad  and  Sansom 


JOHN  WANAMAKER  275 

Streets,  before  he  went  West  Mr.  Wanamaker  heard 
singing,  and  entering  the  church  was  much  impressed 
with  the  services,  especially  with  the  preaching  of  the 
paster,  Rev.  Dr.  John  Chambers.  At  the  conclusion  of 
the  services  he  went  up  to  Doctor  Chambers  and  intro- 
duced himself.  The  clergyman  was  so  pleased  with  the 
young  stranger  that  after  a  long  conversation  he  in- 
sisted on  young  Wanamaker  joining  his  church  and  Sun- 
day-school. John  always  thereafter  took  an  active  part 
in  Sunday-school  work,  and  when  but  eighteen  years  of 
age  enjoyed  quite  a  reputation  as  a  speaker  in  religious 
meetings  both  in  the  Chambers  Church  and  elsewhere. 

By  1861  the  thrifty  John  had  succeeded  in  saving 
$1,900,  and  then  he  came  to  the  momentous  decision  to 
go  into  business  for  himself  with  his  friend,  Nathan 
Brown,  whose  sister  he  married  about  this  time.  So,  on 
April  2,  1861,  the  youthful  firm  of  Wanamaker  & 
Brown  took  possession  of  a  building  at  Sixth  and  Mar- 
ket Streets,  on  the  site  of  what  was  once  George  Wash- 
ington's home,  and  where  also  once  lived  Robert  Mor- 
ris, the  great  financier  of  the  Revolution,  who  once  en- 
tertained Count  Rochambeau  there.  Some  other  occu- 
pants of  this  historic  house  were  the  British  General, 
Lord  Howe,  and,  it  is  said,  Benedict  Arnold. 

The  store,  was  opened  for  business  at  six  o'clock  in 
the  morning  on  Monday,  April  8,  ninety-four  hours  be- 
fore Fort  Sumter  was  cannonaded  by  the  Confederate 
General  Beauregard. 

The  first  day's  sales  amounted  to  $24.67,  of  which 
sum  all  but  the  sixty-seven  cents  was  immediately  spent 
in  advertising,  in  which  Mr.  Wanamaker  has  always 


276  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

been  a  firm  believer.  The  first  year's  sales  reached 
$24,367,  and  the  hustling  young  merchant  didn't  dis- 
dain to  deliver  goods  himself  in  a  wheelbarrow  some- 
times. 

On  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  however,  young 
Wanamaker  sought  to  enlist  in  the  army,  but  was  re- 
jected on  account  of  the  weak  condition  of  his  lungs. 
Then  with  George  H.  Stuart,  James  Grant  and  others, 
he  organized  the  great  Christian  Commission,  which 
went  hand  in  hand  with  the  Sanitary  Commission,  and 
was  so  efficient  in  aiding  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers, 
on  both  sides,  until  the  close  of  the  war. 

The  first  eight  years  of  Mr.  Wanamaker's  enter- 
prise was  marked  by  that  same  spirit  of  application  to 
which  he  had  accustomed  himself  from  early  youth  and 
he  lost  not  a  day  from  business  in  all  that  time.  His 
energy  and  unceasing  attention  to  the  details  of  the 
business  caused  it  to  grow  with  much  rapidity,  until 
it  developed  into  what  was  admitted  to  be  the  largest 
retail  clothing  establishment  in  America.  In  1865  he 
inaugurated  the  strictly  "  one  price  "  system,  and  its 
success  led  many  other  merchants  to  follow  in  the  same 
line. 

In  1875,  Mr.  Wanamaker  bought  the  old  freight  sta- 
tion of  the  Pennsylvania  Eailroad  at  Market  and  Thir- 
teenth Streets,  and  it  was  quite  an  event  in  Philadel- 
phia when  the  "  Grand  Depot  "  was  opened  on  May  6, 
1876,  a  date  almost  coinciding  with  the  opening  of  the 
Centennial  Exposition.  In  course  of  time  the  whole 
block  was  gradually  absorbed,  creating  the  most  inter- 
esting as  well  as  the  largest  retail  store  in  America. 


JOHN  WANAMAKEB  277 

In  September,  1896,  the  famous  A.  T.  Stewart  Store 
on  Broadway  from  Ninth  to  Tenth  Streets,  New  York, 
was  added  to  this  gigantic  business  enterprise,  and  in 
September,  1897,  a  fourteen-story  building  erected  by 
Mr.  Wanamaker  on  Broadway,  Eighth  and  Ninth 
Streets,  was  opened  to  the  public  with  a  demonstration 
which  was  participated  in  by  prominent  men  from  all 
parts  of  the  country,  including  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury. 

The  old  freight  depot  in  the  Thirteenth  and  Market 
Streets  block,  Philadelphia,  has  entirely  disappeared, 
and  on  its  site  now  stands  a  twelve-story  granite  struc- 
ture with  three  floors  beneath  the  street  surface.  An 
army  of  more  than  twelve  thousand  employees  is  con- 
nected with  these  great  stores. 

In  1912  this  store  was  completed,  and  dedicated 
by  President  Taft  in  the  presence  of  a  notable  assemb- 
lage of  distinguished  visitors,  including  members  of  the 
diplomatic  corps,  Senators,  Kepresentatives  and  Gov- 
ernors. 

Mr.  Wanamaker  was  the  originator  and  organizer  of 
this  mercantile  achievement. 

John  Wanamaker,  a  pioneer  in  big  advertising,  re- 
duced it  to  a  science.  Perhaps  more  than  any  one 
man  in  the  United  States  John  Wanamaker  succeeded 
in  establishing  the  value  of  honest  statements  to  the 
reading  public.  He  frowned  upon  "  brag  "  and  "  blus- 
ter "  and  set  the  pattern  for  great  merchants  throughout 
the  country.  He  translated  white  paper  into  money 
that  came  across  his  counter  and  this  translation  was 
achieved  through  his  intimate  knowledge  of  just  what 


278     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

lie  had  to  sell  and  his  remarkable  ability  of  making  store 
news  interesting. 

In  1914  he  introduced  into  his  business  establishments 
the  Saturday  full  holiday  for  his  employes  —  during 
July  and  August  —  which  has  been  largely  followed 
by  progressive  merchants. 

He  owns  one  of  the  finest  art  collections  in  the  coun- 
try, though  some  of  his  gems  were  lost  in  a  fire  which 
burned  Lindenhurst,  his  country  home  near  Jenkintown, 
in  1907.  On  the  seventh  floor  of  his  store  is  a  private 
art  gallery,  in  which  are  two  colossal  paintings  epito- 
mizing the  life-work  of  Mihaly  Munkacsy,  "  Christ  Be- 
fore Pilate  "  and  "  The  Crucifixion."  No  price  has 
ever  been  placed  upon  these  masterpieces.  Often  the 
great  merchant  remains  in  this  impressive  room  half 
an  hour  or  more,  gathering  inspiration  for  his  daily 
tasks. 

He  is  a  firm  believer  in  real  estate  as  an  investment, 
and  owns  valuable  plots  in  and  near  his  native  city. 

Mr.  Wanamaker's  wondrous  energy  is  shown  in  a 
nose  prominent  and  eyes  clear,  characterized  by  fre- 
quent flashes.  His  jaws  are  well-formed  and  strong, 
and  his  face  always  is  clean  shaven,  as  smooth  as  a 
boy's,  as  mobile  as  an  actor's,  and  when  lighted  in  the 
warmth  of  discussion  beams  with  expression.  He  is 
almost  six  feet  tall  and  finely  built.  Nobody  ever  saw 
him  dressed  in  any  other  color  than  black  or  dark  gray, 
with  a  plain  black  necktie  under  a  turn-down  collar. 
His  face  has  ever  upon  it  an  expression  of  geniality, 
of  warm-hearted  amiability.  Ever  quick  and  spry  in 
his  actions,  no  one  can  be  in  his  presence  without  catch- 


JOHN  WANAMAKER  279 

ing  something  of  the  spirit  of  his  wide-awake,  all-per- 
vading energy. 

In  1900,  while  a  prominent  clergyman  was  visiting 
Mr.  Wanamaker  at  his  store,  two  girls,  detected  in 
shop-lifting,  were  brought  into  the  private  office.  The 
goods  had  been  found  on  them,  and  while  they  admitted 
their  guilt,  they  were  defiant  and  refused  to  reveal  their 
names.  At  Mr.  Wanamaker's  suggestion  both  men 
knelt  in  prayer,  which  so  moved  the  culprits  that  they 
broke  down,  cried  and  confessed,  saying  they  were 
strangers  in  the  city.  Instead  of  sending  them  to 
prison,  Mr.  Wanamaker  had  them  taken  to  the  house 
of  a  Christian  woman,  and  gave  them  employment  in 
his  store.  This  is  an  example  of  his  wonderful  spiritual 
influence  and  philanthropic  activity. 

Mr.  Wanamaker  has  always  had  a  purpose  paramount 
to  profits  in  business,  and  he  may  be  said  to  have  rev- 
olutionized the  retail  trade  by  his  inauguration  of 
shorter  business  days,  one-price  system,  profit-sharing, 
pension  funds,  etc. 

He  has  always  been  very  public-spirited.  He  once 
financed  an  expedition  to  Alaska,  and  while  Postmaster 
General  introduced  many  reforms  into  the  service. 

In  1912  Mr.  Wanamaker  received  the  decoration  of 
an  officer  in  the  Legion  of  Honor  from  the  French  Gov- 
ernment. Two  degrees  of  LL.D.  have  been  conferred 
on  him,  one  by  Howard  University,  the  other  by  Ursinus 
College,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

He  has  erected  Y.  M.  C.  A.  buildings  in  India,  China, 
Korea,  and  in  1914  sent  two  relief  ships  to  Belgium. 

He  is  a  typical  example  of  the  self-educated  American 


280     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

who  has  climbed  the  ladder  from  the  first  rung  to  the 
top.  He  has  wonderful  powers  of  concentration,  and 
is  a  good  listener  as  well  as  a  good  talker. 

In  his  New  York  office  you  will  see  a  chair  used  for 
many  years  by  John  Hancock;  a  desk  of  James  Madi- 
son's; and  on  his  walls  are  hung  old-time  prints  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Stephen  Girard,  Robert  Morris, 
George  Washington  and  other  great  Americans.  In  his 
Philadelphia  office,  opposite  his  desk  there  always  looks 
down  upon  him  from  the  canvas  the  familiar  features  of 
Benjamin  Harrison,  his  intimate  friend,  with  whom 
he  served  the  American  public  for  four  years  as  Post- 
master General. 

Working  six  days  a  week,  Mr.  Wanamaker  has  never 
been  content  to  rest  the  seventh,  and  every  Sunday 
one  can  find  him,  even  now,  at  Bethany  Church  in  Phil- 
adelphia, which  he  founded  over  fifty  years  ago,  and 
which  has  the  largest  Sunday-school  in  the  world,  reach- 
ing a  membership  of  almost  six  thousand. 

Mr.  Wanamaker  has  really  given  his  great  life  to  two 
things  —  to  his  wonderful  business  which  has  been  not 
only  a  path-finder  in  commercial  ethics,  but  also  an  in- 
dustrial community  that  supports  in  its  various  ramifi- 
cations at  least  sixty-five  thousand  people;  and  to  his 
church  and  Sunday-school.  Into  each  of  these  he  has 
woven  his  wonderful  personality. 

It  has  been  said  that  he  might  have  been  President 
of  the  United  States  had  he  been  content  to  go  along 
with  the  machine  methods  of  the  day.  But  Mr.  Wana- 
maker has  always  stood  for  the  highest  type  of  govern- 
ment, as  he  stands  for  the  highest  type  of  business,  and 


JOHN  WANAMAKEE  281 

although  he  has  made  many  fights  for  reform  in  his 
home  city  and  home  State,  he  has  been  content  to  re- 
main a  soldier  in  the  ranks,  leaving  the  rewards  to 
others. 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE 

INVENTOR  OF  THE  RAILROAD  AIR-BRAKE 


GEORGE    WESTINGHOUSE 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE 
INVENTOR  OF  THE  RAILROAD  AIR-BRAKE 

IFF!  Bang!  Crash!  "  It  was  a  head-on  col- 
lision,  and  nothing  remained  of  the  two 
"  freights  "  but  a  heap  of  wreckage  —  a  mass 
of  junk.  The  engineers  had  seen  the  signals,  hut  before 
the  hand-brakes  could  be  applied,  the  collision  came. 

A  young  man,  whose  train  was  held  up  by  the  wreck, 
stood,  hands  in  pocket,  gazing  at  the  ruin.  He  was 
thinking.  Then  he  remarked  to  one  of  the  train  hands : 

"  This  wreck  wouldn't  have  happened  if  the  engineers 
could  have  controlled  the  trains  from  their  cabs !  " 

"  Control  how?" 

"  By  braking  them." 

"  Why,  yes,"  responded  the  man,  slowly  grasping  the 
idea,  "  they'd  have  had  plenty  of  time !  " 

When  the  line  was  clear,  the  young  man  continued  his 
journey,  but  there  had  been  planted  in  his  mind  a 
great  idea  —  the  idea  of  the  automatic  brake  for  rail- 
road trains.  A  very  crude  idea  it  was  to  begin  with, 
and  he  had  to  reject  first  one  and  then  another  attempt 
to  design  a  workable  brake.  A  mechanical  automatic 
brake  wouldn't  work,  and  he  realized  that  he  had 
to  have  some  kind  of  motive  power ;  so  he  tried  steam. 
But  that  wouldn't  work.  His  problem  seemed  insol- 

285 


286  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTEY 

uble,  but  in  his  spare  time  he  continued  tinkering  with 
his  brake  at  his  father's  machine-shop  at  Schenectady, 
]^ew  York. 

Then  Dame  Fortune  took  a  hand  in  shaping  this 
young  man's  career. 

It  was  the  noon  hour  of  an  intensely  hot  August  day 
at  the  Westinghouse  Agricultural  Works  at  Schenec- 
tady.  The  machinery  was  still,  everybody  was  at 
lunch,  and  the  few  clerks  in  the  office  were  well  nigh 
prostrated  by  the  heat  —  for  it  was  the  hottest  day  in 
years. 

At  one  of  the  desks,  however,  sat  a  young  man  whom 
no  heat,  however  intense,  or  cold  either,  seemed  to  af- 
fect. A  living  dynamo,  his  tremendous  energy,  per- 
sistence and  concentration  ox  mind  rendered  him  obliv- 
ious of  weather  or  other  conditions.  His  name  was 
George  Westinghouse,  and  he  was  soon  to  become  one 
of  the  world's  greatest  inventors. 

George  Westinghouse  had  a  passion  for  work  along 
inventive  lines,  and  on  this  particular  day  he  was  as 
usual  devoting  his  dinner  hour  to  working  on  his 
brake  idea  in  his  father's  office. 

So  absorbed  in  his  plans  did  he  become,  that  for 
awhile  he  didn't  hear  Dame  Fortune  —  in  the  guise  of 
a  little  girl  —  whispering  at  his  elbow. 

"  You'll  take  one,  won't  you  ?  "  pleaded,  almost  tear- 
fully, a  childish  voice. 

"  Take  what  ?  "  he  asked,  still  mostly  absorbed  in  his 
drawings.  He  hadn't  heard  a  word  about  what  she 
had  previously  said. 

"  This  magazine,"  the  girl  replied,  holding  it  out  to 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE          287 

him.  "  You  know,  Pm  spending  my  vacation  getting 
subscriptions  for  it." 

George  was  a  good-natured  young  fellow,  and,  like 
most  men  of  genius,  without  a  particle  of  stinginess  in 
his  make-up. 

"  All  right,"  he  said,  putting  down  the  money,  "  leave 
the  magazine  on  the  desk." 

The  little  girl  laid  the  book  down,  thanked  him  and 
went  on  her  way.  Almost  immediately  George  was  as 
much  absorbed  in  his  work  as  ever  and  had  forgotten 
the  incident. 

Trivial  as  the  incident  was,  however,  it  resulted  in 
momentous  consequences  to  the  world. 

That  evening  when  George  went  home  he  thrust  the 
magazine  into  his  pocket  and  forgot  all  about  it  until 
bedtime  when  he  took  off  his  coat  and  saw  it  sticking 
out  of  his  pocket. 

Taking  it  out  he  glanced  rapidly  over  it.  Suddenly 
something  riveted  his  attention.  It  was  a  short  item 
describing  the  building  of  the  Mont  Cenis  tunnel,  in 
the  Swiss  Alps,  and  stating  how  compressed  air  was 
being  used  as  motive  power  for  drills. 

In  a  flash  George  Westinghouse  saw  the  solution  of 
his  brake  problem  and,  sitting  down,  he  made  a  rough 
sketch  of  the  first  air-brake. 

Strange  to  say,  George's  father  had  no  confidence  in 
any  of  his  son's  "  wild  schemes,"  as  he  called  his  youth- 
ful inventions,  and  he  declined  to  take  up  the  manufac- 
ture of  any  of  them.  So  George  decided  to  manufac- 
ture them  himself,  and  went  about  trying  to  raise  capi- 
tal for  that  purpose.  He  at  last  succeeded  in  getting 


288  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

two  men  to  put  up  $5,000  each  for  the  building  of  the 
plant  at  Schenectady,  they  to  have  a  two-thirds  inter- 
est. He  was  to  give  his  services  and  patent-rights  for 
his  third.  He  was  shrewd  enough,  however,  to  re- 
serve to  himself  the  patents  themselves. 

A  quarrel  over  this  soon  arose  and  Westinghouse  was 
"  frozen  out "  of  the  business.  -Without  his  energy, 
initiative  and  genius  it  could  not,  however,  go  on,  and 
soon  came  to  an  untimely  end. 

The  young  man,  though  only  twenty  years  old,  had 
recently  married,  and  in  the  serious  predicament  in 
which  he  now  found  himself,  his  warmest  encourage- 
ment and  best  advice  came  from  his  young  wife.  A  few 
days  later  he  was  in  Pittsburgh,  having  made  an  ar- 
rangement with  the  steel-casting  firm  of  Alexander  & 
Woods  to  employ  him  as  salesman,  they  to  have  the 
right  to  manufacture  his  re-railing  device,  one  of  his 
inventions.  This  was  in  the  spring  of  1868. 

From  then  on  the  career  of  young  George  Westing- 
house  developed  with  a  rapidity  that  was  as  astounding 
as  it  was  dazzling. 

In  1869  the  Westinghouse  Air-Brake  Company  was 
organized,  with  George  Westinghouse  as  its  president 
and  general  manager,  and  by  1871  his  resistless  energy 
had  led  to  the  adoption  of  his  air-brake  by  most  Ameri- 
can railroads.  The  same  year  he  went  abroad  with  his 
wife,  and  succeeded  in  getting  his  invention  adopted 
there,  and  after  his  return  home  Congress  passed  a  law 
making  the  use  of  the  Westinghouse  air-brake  by  rail- 
roads compulsory. 

When  George  Westinghouse   died   in   1914,   at   the 


GEOEGE  WESTINGHOUSE  289 

age  of  sixty-eight,  he  was  the  president  of  more  than 
thirty  large  corporations,  the  owner  of  thousands  of 
patents,  and  a  multi-millionaire. 

George  Westinghouse  was  born  at  Central  Bridge, 
Schoharie  county,  New  York,  on  October  6,  1846,  his 
father  having  moved  there  from  Vermont.  George 
Westinghouse,  Sr.,  an  inventor  of  more  than  usual  abil- 
ity, had  patented  the  first  threshing-machine  in  Amer- 
ica, and  in  1856,  when  George,  junior,  was  ten  years 
old,  moved  to  Schenectady,  New  York,  where  he  or- 
ganized the  Westinghouse  Agricultural  Works,  to  man- 
ufacture his  machines. 

When  the  boy  George  was  not  at  school,  one  could 
be  sure  of  finding  him  in  one  of  his  father's  machine 
shops,  where  he  loved  to  tinker  around  and  "  make 
things.7'  From  an  early  age  he  showed  a  most  unusual 
aptitude  for  things  mechanical,  and  before  he  was  four- 
teen hail  invented  the  rotary  engine. 

When  the  Civil  War  came,  George,  only  fifteen,  de- 
termined to  enter  the  U.  S.  Navy.  So  he  tried  for  the 
examinations,  passed,  and  was  assigned  to  an  assistant 
engineer's  post.  Later  he  enlisted  in  the  12th  New 
York  National  Guard,  afterwards  changing  to  the  cav- 
alry, and  finally  closing  his  war  record  as  engineer  on 
the  U.  S.  gunboats  Muscoota  and  Stars  and  Stripes. 

After  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  he  went  to  college  for 
a  couple  of  years,  and  then  returned  to  his  old  job  in 
his  father's  factory. 

The  boy  had  a  perfect  passion  for  mechanics.  Born 
with  a  wonderful  inventive  genius  and  great  fondness 
and  capacity  for  work,  he  had  in  addition  to  these 


290  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

valuable  qualities,  herculean  size  and  strength,  together 
with  an  adamantine  will. 

After  his  invention  of  the  air-brake,  as  related,  all 
these  qualities  were  heavily  drawn  upon.  He  took  his 
air-brake  invention  to  first  one  railroad  manager  and 
then  to  another,  but  for  a  long  time  he  was  unable  to 
interest  a  single  soul  in  it.  No  one  had  confidence  in 
the  "  boy's  "  invention.  To  stop  a  train  by  air,  seemed 
absurd  on  the  face  of  it. 

One  of  the  great  American  railroad  chiefs  he  man- 
aged to  secure  an  interview  with  was  Commodore  \7an- 
derbilt  of  the  New  York  Central  Railroad.  Every 
obstacle  was  put  in  George  Westinghouse's  way  to  pre- 
vent this  interview.  But  at  last  he  reached  the  presence 
of  the  railroad  king.  The  old  Commodore  listened 
silently  to  his  earnest  and  eloquent  description  of  his 
invention,  and,  when  the  young  man  stopped  talking, 
said: 

"  So  you  think  you  can  stop  a  New  York  Central 
train  going  at  full  speed  by  wind,  do  you  ?  —  Well, 
young  man,  I've  no  time  to  waste  on  darn  fools  — 
good  morning !  " 

His  reception  elsewhere  was  not  unlike  this  one. 
But  these  rebuffs  did  not  dishearten  the  young  inventor, 
in  fact  only  nerved  him  and  strengthened  his  deter- 
mination, for  he  knew  the  value  of  his  brake  —  knew 
it  would  work.  At  last  he  got  in  touch  with  three 
Pittsburgh  gentlemen  —  Mr.  Carnegie,  Mr.  Pitcairn 
and  Mr.  Bagley  —  and  it  was  arranged  between  them 
to  equip  one  train  with  the  Westinghouse  air-brake  at- 
tachment, and  thus  give  the  invention  a  practical  test. 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE  291 

In  October,  1868,  the  test  was  made  with  a  train  of 
one  engine  and  four  coaches  on  a  track  between  Pitts- 
burgh and  Steubenville. 

Luck  favored  young  Westinghouse,  for,  in  the  middle 
of  the  run,  a  farmer's  wagon  got  on  the  track,  at  a 
sharp  bend.  Hand  brakes  would  have  been  useless  in 
such  a  sudden  emergency.  The  engineer  threw  on  the 
air-brakes,  and  a  collision  was  prevented  by  a  margin 
of  only  a  foot  or  two.  So  suddenly  was  the  train 
stopped,  that  everybody  in  it  was  thrown  flat. 

After  this  and  other  highly  successful  tests,  "  Crazy 
George,"  as  he  was  often  called,  was  on  top  of  the 
heap,  and  hailed  as  one  of  the  world's  greatest  bene- 
factors. 

He  was  soon  traveling  about  in.  one  of  the  most  lux- 
urious and  up-to-date  private  cars  ever  constructed, 
completely  equipped  as  a  business  office  and  study,  and 
then  he  built  his  palace  at  Lenox,  in  the  Berkshires, 
known  as  Erskine  Park,  where  he  entertained  some  of 
the  world's  greatest  inventors  and  scientists. 

Within  a  few  years  the  companies  he  controlled  were 
employing  not  far  from  a  hundred  thousand  workmen, 
whom  he  treated  so  fairly  that  there  was  never  a  strike 
of  any  importance  at  any  of  his  works. 

Mr.  Westinghouse  was  always  "  at  home "  to  the 
countless  hundreds  of  inventors  who  came  to  him  with 
their  ideas.  Sometimes  he  got  hold  of  something  val- 
uable, but  often  the  idea  proved  valueless.  He  had  a 
perfect  mania,  or  genius,  for  experimentation  and  in- 
vestigation, and  electricity  soon  attracted  him.  With 
his  usual  irresistible  energy  he  plunged  into  its  study 


292     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

and  in  1893  succeeded  in  getting  the  contract  to  light 
the  Chicago  World's  Fair. 

Two  French  inventors  discovered  the  use  and  economy 
of  the  alternating  electric  current.  Mr.  Westinghouse, 
with  his  usual  acumen  and  enterprise,  went  to  Paris 
to  see  them  and  bought  the  patents.  He  then  applied 
the  new  system  in  the  United  States,  with  the  aid  of 
his  own  inventions,  throughout  the  whole  field  of  the 
electrical  industry.  It  proved  a  revolutionary  inven- 
tion for  the  Westinghouse  companies. 

He  then  turned  his  attention  to  the  electrification  of 
railroads,  for  it  was  his  opinion,  and  he  often  stated 
it,  that  the  steam  locomotive  had  reached  its  capacity, 
and  that  universal  running  of  trains  by  electricity  was 
close  at  hand. 

Here  again  his  foresight  proved  wonderfully  cor- 
rect. Some  of  the  heaviest  locomotives  in  the  world 
to-day  are  driven  by  electricity. 

Some  one  said  once  that  George  Westinghouse' s  air- 
brake had  saved  more  lives  than  were  lost  by  Napoleon 
in  all  his  wars.  He  has,  too,  added  to  the  rapidity 
of  railroad  travel,  for  without  air-brakes  trains  couldn't 
travel  at  more  than  half  the  speed  they  do. 

In  addition  to  his  air-brake,  electrical  and  other  in- 
ventions Mr.  Westinghouse  was  the  first  man  to  har- 
ness natural  gas  to  industry.  By  so  doing  he  more  than 
doubles  the  manufacturing  capacity  of  the  Middle  West. 
It  was  through  his  wife  he  became  interested  in  nat- 
ural gas.  Mrs.  Westinghouse,  with  a  clever  woman's 
intuition,  was  sure  there  must  be  some  in  the  back  gar- 
den of  their  Pittsburgh  residence. 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE  293 

Mr.  Westinghouse  was  amused,  and  asked  her  if 
she  was  willing  to  spend  $5,000  in  sinking  a  well. 

"  It'll  cost,  all  of  that,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  let's  try  it,"  his  wife  replied. 

Down  and  down  and  down  and  down  went  the  drill 
until  it  seemed  as  if  it  must  be  ahout  the  center  of 
the  earth.  Still  there  was  no  gas!  Then  suddenly, 
unexpectedly,  the  gas  came  with  a  gush  that  threatened 
to  sweep  the  house  away.  But  the  flow  did  not  last 
long,  and  soon  the  well  petered  out  —  went  dry.  The 
experiment  was,  nevertheless,  a  tremendously  success- 
ful one,  for  it  led  eventually  to  the  use  on  a  huge  scale 
of  natural  gas  as  a  fuel  in  manufacturing,  thanks  to 
George  Westinghouse's  experiments  and  inventions. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  he  was  the  possessor  of 
Aladdin's  wonderful  lamp.  At  his  will,  almost  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  vast  Westinghouse  factories  sprang 
up,  not  only  in  America  and  Canada,  but  in  England 
and  Europe. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  his  success  was  built  upon 
the  same  old  formula  —  an  idea,  and  perseverance 
enough  to  develop  it. 

George  Westinghouse  was  a  man  of  ideas,  and  his  de- 
termination —  stick-to-it-iveness  —  enabled  him  to  de- 
velop them.  Gifted  with  extraordinary  mechanical 
genius,  and  wonderful  organizing  ability,  he  was,  in 
addition,  a  far-seeing,  broad-minded  man,  with  a  brain 
peculiarly  receptive  to  suggestions.  In  this  respect  it 
somewhat  resembled  a  lightning-conductor,  so  rapidly 
did  it  absorb  ideas. 

Before  he  died  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  his 


294     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

air-brake  in  universal  use  the  world  over;  of  being 
made  an  honorary  member  of  learned  societies,  and 
of  receiving  decorations  and  orders  from  foreign  gov- 
ernments. 

George  Westinghouse  was  easily  one  of  the  greatest 
men  in  his  century,  and  one  of  the  world's  foremost 
leaders  of  industry. 


JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS 

WIZAKD  OF  AUTOS  AND  AIRPLANES 


JOHN    XORTH    WILLYS 


JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS 
WIZAED  OF  AUTOS  AND  AIRPLANES 

FEW  leaders  in  American  industry  have  been  so 
splendidly  successful  as  John  North  Willys,  the 
"Auto   Wizard"   of   Toledo,   Ohio.     The   dra- 
matic scenes  in  his  life  flash  by  with  the  rapidity  almost 
of  motion  pictures,  and  constitute  a  romance  of  auto- 
mobile selling  and  manufacturing  without  a  parallel. 

In  1890,  when  only  seventeen,  a  small  storekeeper  in  a 
country  town  in  New  York  State,  to-day  he  is  a  mil- 
lionaire. 

Well  has  John  North  Willys  been  called  the  "  Auto 
Wizard  " ! 

Mr.  Willys  is  young  —  much  younger  than  most  men 
who  have  achieved  as  much  as  he,  but  has  crowded 
many  years  of  hustle  into  his  life.  He  is  one  of  our 
great  army  of  young  Americans  who  achieve  big  things 
without  any  "  drag,"  without  any  pull,  and  with  no  one 
to  push  him.  He  needs  no  one  to  do  that,  as  he  is  all 
"  push."  He  has  the  ability  to  do  things  in  the  right 
way  and  with  the  most  productive  results.  He  has 
business  and  financial  genius. 

It  was  in  the  small  country  town  of  Canandaigua, 
New  York,  where  his  father  was  a  brick-and-tile  manu- 
facturer, that  the  hero  of  this  brief  chronicle  was  born  on 
October  25,  1873.  When  old  enough  Johnnie  went  to 

297 


298  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  public  school  and  did  so  well  that  his  father  wanted 
to  send  him  to  college.  But  the  boy  didn't  relish  the 
idea  of  going  to  the  university,  for  he  was  boiling  over 
with  energy  and  enthusiasm  for  a  business  life  —  and 
millions ! 

He  had  already  done  some  business  on  his  own  ac- 
count before  he  was  sixteen  and  it  came  about  in  this 
way.  He  wanted  a  bicycle,  and,  as  his  parents  couldn't 
afford  it,  bicycles  costing  then  a  hundred  dollars, 
Johnny  set  forth  after  school  and  in  different  ways 
earned  money  enough  to  buy  a  sample  New  Mail  Bi- 
cycle, taking  the  agency  for  Canandaigua  and  thereby 
getting  the  dealer's  discount. 

This  started  him  as  a  bicycle  agent  doing  his  selling 
after  school  hours.  At  seventeen  years  of  age  he  was 
a  business  man ! 

Later,  after  getting  through  school,  he  opened  a  bi- 
cycle store  and  repair  shop  in  Canandaigua.  This 
brought  him  in  touch  with  the  Eclipse  Bicycle  at  El- 
mira,  N.  Y.,  and  he  became  a  salesman  for  that  com- 
pany. Later,  with  the  money  he  had  saved,  he  estab- 
lished in  Elmira  the  Elmira  Arms  Company  and  dealt 
in  bicycles  and  sporting  goods,  first  as  a  retailer  then 
as  a  wholesale  distributor.  Before  he  was  twenty-five 
he  had  built  up  a  business  of  $500,000  a  year. 

Then  came  quite  a  violent  turn  upward  of  Fortune's 
wheel  for  the  youthful  bicycle  dealer. 

One  day  in  Cleveland  he  saw  for  the  first  time  a 
horseless  vehicle  —  a  vehicle  that  was  self-propelled. 
A  great  idea  seized  him,  and  for  $900  he  bought  a 
Pierce  Motorette  to  use  as  a  sample,  for  he  determined 


JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS  299 

to  sell  motors  as  well  as  bicycles.  He  saw  big  money 
in  it.  But  although  he  gave  endless  demonstrations  in 
and  around  Elmira  he  sold  only  two  the  first  year.  The 
third  year  he  succeeded  in  selling  twenty,  and  after 
that  he  took  more  orders  than  the  manufacturer  could 
fill. 

Mr.  Willys  almost  at  a  glance  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  there  was  a  fortune  in  making  automobiles, 
but  he  hadn't  enough  capital.  So  as  a  first  step,  be- 
fore beginning  manufacturing,  he  formed  a  large  sell- 
ing company,  as  he  had  done  with  bicycles,  to  take  the 
entire  output  of  one  or  two  companies.  He  conceived 
the  idea  of  securing  the  entire  United  States  agency  for 
the  Overland  car,  which  was  manufactured  by  the  Over- 
land Automobile  Co.  owned  by  D.  M.  Parry  of  the 
Parry  Mfg.  Co.,  of  Indianapolis.  He  went  to  that  city 
to  close  this  deal  and  was  told  that  he  was  crazy  to  under- 
take such  a  thing. 

"  What's  your  objection  to  giving  me  the  sole  United 
States  agency  ?  "  demanded  Willys. 

"  Young  man,"  the  president  retorted,  sternly,  think- 
ing to  crush  Willys  in  one  sentence,  "  do  you  realize 
that  we  want  to  manufacture  five  hundred  automobiles 
the  coming  year?  " 

(Mr.  Willys  makes  more  than  that  every  forenoon  to- 
day.) 

"  Suppose  I  agree  to  take  all  of  your  five  hundred 
cars  —  and  pay  you  for  those  I  cannot  sell  ? "  said 
Willys. 

"  You  wouldn't  be  so  foolish,"  answered  the  automo- 
bile manufacturer, 


300     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

"  Bring  on  a  contract  and  see  a  foolish  young  man 
sign  it,"  laughed  Willys,  and  he  did. 

It  was  an  iron-clad  contract  binding  him  to  pay  for 
five  hundred  automobiles  every  year.  Mr.  Willys  went 
back  to  Elmira,  and  then  set  out  on  a  tour  of  the 
country.  He  established  many  agencies  and  was  suc- 
ceeding so  well  that,  from  a  Western  town,  he  wired  the 
manufacturers  in  Indianapolis :  "  Need  more  than  five 
hundred  cars  to  fill  orders.  How  fast  can  you  turn 
them  out  ? " 

It  was  a  bright  morning  full  of  hope  for  him  when 
he  sent  that  wire.  He  had  visions  of  joy  in  that  In- 
dianapolis office  when  they  got  his  wire.  But  when  the 
reply  came  it  knocked  the  sunshine  out  of  that  day 
quicker  than  a  wink.  The  wire  reply  was : 

"  Take  no  more  orders.     Cannot  fill  those  on  hand." 

It  was  a  bad  fix  he  was  in  then,  when  one  takes  into 
consideration  the  fact  that  this  was  in  1907  —  the  year 
of  the  big  panic  when  actual  cash  couldn't  be  had. 
Young  Willys  was  up  against  a  mighty  stiff  proposition. 

Big  concerns  were  failing  right  and  left,  and  other 
big  concerns  were  tottering.  Those  that  were  not  tot- 
tering were  so  badly  frightened  that  they  wouldn't  in- 
vest two  dollars  in  a  five-dollar  gold  piece,  they  were  so 
suspicious.  Mr.  Willys  took  his  message  from  the  Ov- 
erland concern  of  Indianapolis  to  his  little  room  in  that 
Western  town  hotel  and  sat  down.  He  propped  it  up 
in  front  of  him  and  got  busy.  He  didn't  shed  a  tear 
or  wring  his  hands.  He  did  ring  for  writing  materials 
and  got  busy  setting  down  tall  columns  of  figures.  He 
knew  more  about  the  manufacture  of  an  automobile 


JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS  301 

than  most  of  the  officials  of  the  company  that  gave  him 
the  United  States  agency.  When  he  had  finished  fig- 
uring he  made  the  next  train  for  Indianapolis. 

"  The  failure  of  that  company  meant  the  loss  of  my 
income,  it  meant  that  I  must  start  all  over  again  but, 
worst  of  all,  it  meant  that  I  must  break  my  promise  to 
several  hundred  customers  who  expected  me  to  deliver 
cars/'  Mr.  Willys  once  said,  touching  briefly  upon  his 
"  dark  day." 

"  What's  the  meaning  of  this  ?  "  he  demanded  of  the 
manager  of  the  company  when  he  reached  Indianapolis 
late  on  Saturday. 

The  manager  shrugged  his  shoulders.  He  had 
stopped  fighting  several  days  before. 

"  We  are  going  into  bankruptcy  Monday  morning," 
he  said. 

"  We  are  not !  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Willys. 

"  We  ? "  queried  the  manager  with  a  sardonic  smile. 

"  You  bet.     I  can't  afford  to  have  you  do  this  — " 

"  We  are  out  of  funds.  We  paid  many  of  our  em- 
ployees in  checks  to-day  and  there  isn't  money  enough 
to  cover  in  the  bank.  Of  course  they  will  be  preferred 
creditors  — ' 

"  How  much  cash  do  you  need  to  pay  these  men  — 
and  keep  them  ?  " 

"  Only  $350,"  was  the  manager's  answer.  Mr. 
Willys  stoutly  asserted  that  he  would  raise  it.  The 
manager  said  he  was  dreaming,  that  there  wasn't  that 
much  ready  cash  in  seven  States,  and  a  lot  of  other 
discouraging  things.  But  Mr.  Willys  went  to  the  hotel 
clerk  and  asked  for  $350.  The  clerk's  answer  was  quite 


302     FAMOUS  LEADEKS  OF  INDUSTEY 

to  the  point,  "  What's  the  answer  ?  I'll  bite."  It  took 
some  talking  and  Willys'  personal  check  to  convince  the 
clerk  that  he  was  in  earnest.  The  proprietor  of  the 
hotel,  learning  that  Willys  wanted  this  money  to  pay 
a  group  of  Indianapolis  workmen,  ordered  the  clerk 
to  cash  no  more  checks  and  to  hold  on  to  every  coin  and 
bill  from  the  hotel,  restaurant,  bar,  cigar-counter  and 
other  source  of  revenue.  By  Monday  morning  the  pro- 
prietor dumped  a  big  stack  of  coins  and  small  bills  into 
a  valise  and  handed  it  to  Mr.  Willys,  who  got  it  into 
the  bank  in  time  to  pay  the  workmen. 

"  But  why  this  generosity  ?  You  are  not  one  of  the 
company !  "  queried  the  surprised  manager. 

"  I'm  going  to  be,"  declared  Willys  decisively  with 
a  cheerful  smile,  and  then  followed  some  of  the  tallest 
hustling  for  funds  that  ever  occurred  in  the  history  of 
automobiles,  either  in  panicky  or  good  times. 

Story  writers  would  not  dare  to  create  a  "  hero  "  who 
forged  ahead  as  rapidly  as  did  Mr.  Willys,  or  who  did 
big  things  on  nothing  but  brains  and  hustle,  because 
the  writer's  critics  would  say  that  the  story  was  not 
only  improbable  but  impossible.  Yet  it  all  happened 
in  fact.  At  that  time  the  Overland  automobile  con- 
cern in  Indianapolis  had  a  "  factory  "  made  of  sheet 
iron,  80x300  feet,  filled  with  much-worn  machinery. 
When  Mr.  Willys  reached  that  city  and  hustled  up 
enough  cash  over  Sunday  to  pay  the  men  the  following 
Monday,  the  firm's  liabilities  were  $80,000  and  its  as- 
sets about  $8,000  in  machinery  and  a  few  automobile 
parts. 

Even  in  good  times  few  investors  would  care  much 


JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS 

for  such  a  proposition,  and  in  such  times  as  the  1907 
panic  the  suggestion  that  Mr.  Willys  or  any  one  else 
could  raise  money  enough  to  tide  the  firm  over  seemed 
wildly  impossible.  Mr.  Willys  had  but  little  money 
himself.  He  rushed  to  Chicago,  he  wired  close  friends, 
he  raked  and  scraped,  and  finally  he  got  enough  cash 
to  keep  the  concern  going  one  more  week,  then  enough 
to  keep  it  going  five  more  weeks,  at  the  same  time  stand- 
ing off  a  bunch  of  decidedly  clamorous  creditors.  By 
good  financiering  he  managed  to  stand  off  those  $80,000 
worth  of  creditors  with  $3,500  cash.  He  counted  in 
his  orders  for  cars  as  assets,  which  made  $25,000,  he 
took  all  the  stock  he  could  buy  in  the  company  he  had 
saved,  and  urged  the  men  to  work  harder  to  fill  orders. 
Then  he  went  out  on  the  road  again  and  got  a  heap 
more  orders,  so  many  that  a  tent  had  to  be  bought  from 
a  stranded  circus  to  accommodate  the  overflow  output. 

The  company  was  safe  and  prospering  now,  with  Mr. 
Willys  at  the  helm,  but  in  too  crowded  quarters.  So 
he  looked  around  for  a  new  site  for  his  plant,  and  he 
bought  the  Pope-Toledo  plant  in  Toledo.  He  merged 
it  into  the  Overland  and  changed  the  name  to  Willys- 
Overland  Company.  It  was  worth  $1,500,000.  He 
got  it  for  $375,000.  His  circus-tent  days  were  over. 
He  had  a  real  plant  now,  but  he  continued  to  enlarge 
it,  until  it  now  covers  a  hundred  and  fifty  acres  of  floor 
space.  He  started  other  plants.  To-day  he  has  six 
plants  turning  out,  at  top  speed,  his  seven  varieties  of 
cars. 

In  the  early  days,  while  every  one  was  "  automo- 
bile mad,"  the  people  were  not  at  all  satisfied  with  the 


304  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OP  INDUSTRY 

one-cylinder  affairs.  .Mr.  Willys  knew  this.  He  pro- 
posed to  give  the  people  what  they  wanted.  He  built 
up  his  giant  business  on  four  cylinders  —  that  is,  he 
added  three  more  cylinders  to  a  car  of  popular  price 
and  then  had  to  keep  about  as  big  a  staff  at  work  en- 
larging his  plant  as  worked  on  his  cars. 

On  a  certain  day  in  December,  1916,  quite  a  little 
family  party  called  on  Mr.  Willys  at  his  Toledo  home. 
It  was  made  up  of  five  thousand  Overland  dealers  and 
another  five  thousand  of  their  "  folks."  For  seventeen 
days  they  pranced  around  Toledo  and  got  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Willys  and  his  plant  and  his  cars,  from 
"  Nothing  on  the  floor "  to  a  complete  car.  Eight 
years  before  that  Mr.  Willys  did  not  know  one  of 
these  men,  nor  had  one  of  them  heard  of  Willys.  Quite 
recently  he  told  something  of  that  "  visit/ '  and  of  the 
growth  of  his  industry  that  made  it  possible : 

"  They  came  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  in  seven 
miles  of  Pullmans.  They  learned  that  we  were  big, 
but  also  that  we  were  human  —  they  found  that  their 
rich  relatives  were  not  a  bad  sort  after  all. 

"  In  1909  we  took  over  the  big  Pope-Toledo  plant, 
but  it  wasn't  big  enough  for  us.  Our  first  year  at  In- 
dianapolis saw  us  turn  out  four  hundred  and  sixty-five 
cars.  By  1910  this  output  had  grown  to  almost  four 
times  that.  In  1917  it  was  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand.  Nine  years  ago  we  had  two  hundred  and 
fifty  employees.  Now  we  have  above  twenty  thousand. 

"  Naturally  I  wanted  my  salespeople  to  come  and 
get  acquainted  —  and  they  came,  like  schoolboys,  bub- 
bling with  fun  and  keen  for  business.  They  saw  every- 


JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS  305 

thing  there  was  to  see,  ate  beefsteak  dinners  and  wit- 
nessed the  best  minstrel  show  I  ever  saw  in  my  life  — 
all  made  up  of  our  own  talent." 

Mr.  Willys'  mention  of  the  minstrel  show  gives  a 
hint  of  how  very  human  he  is.  He  gets  on  with  peo- 
ple because  he  is  sociable,  because  he  is  democratic. 
He  is,  too,  of  a  sanguine,  optimistic  temperament  and 
ardently  devoted  to  outdoor  sports,  for  he  is  a  strong 
believer  in  the  old  adage :  "  All  work  and  no  play 
makes  Jack  a  dull  boy."  This  is  why  he  got  such  a 
good  baseball  team  for  Toledo. 

"  He  looks  like  forty,  he  acts  like  thirty  —  and  he 
works  like  sixty,"  said  one  of  the  officials  of  Mr.  Willys' 
company.  "  He's  down  to  his  office  before  the  office 
boy  and  he  sets  a  pace  difficult  to  follow." 

Mr.  Willys  is  dynamic,  blue-eyed,  possesses  a  pleas- 
ant smile,  is  slightly  gray  and  can  cover  more  territory 
to-day  than  his  youngest,  liveliest  salesman. 

Before  the  war  and  before  he  started  in  to  do  his  bit 
for  Uncle  Sam,  Mr.  Willys'  daily  schedule  was  some- 
thing like  this: 

Eeach  office  eight  A.  M. 

Complete  inspection  of  plant  eight-thirty. 

Get  through  important  mail  nine-thirty. 

Meet  callers  by  appointment  until  one  p.  M. 

Office  conference  until  two. 

After  that  hour  he  frequently  has  private  interests, 
family  interests,  a  bit  of  rest,  some  golf,  more  than 
likely  a  trip  to  some  gathering  and  speechmaking. 

Mr.  Willys  has  a  charming  wife  and  daughter  and  a 
wonderful  residence  in  Toledo.  The  family  spend  their 


306  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

summers  on  the  Massachusetts  coast.  If  he  has  any 
hobby  at  all  outside  of  manufacturing  a  good  automo- 
bile, it  is  art.  About  four  years  ago  he  bought  the  great 
old  painter  Rembrandt's  famous  "  Pilgrim  at  Prayer." 
He  owns  many  famous  old  masters  and  probably  pos- 
sesses the  finest  private  art  gallery  in  the  West. 

Quite  naturally  he  believes  in  good  roads.  A  few 
years  ago  he  believed  $150,000  worth  in  them,  giving 
that  sum  toward  the  building  of  the  Lincoln  highway 
from  New  York  to  San  Francisco,  which  plan  of  link- 
ing the  two  oceans  by  an  improved  highway  he  believes 
only  the  first  step  toward  what  is  going  to  be  the  great- 
est engineering  undertaking  of  the  age.  He  says  that 
good  roads  do  much  for  the  automobile  'industry,  but 
that  the  automobile  industry  has  done  ten  times  more 
in  creating  good  roads. 

It  wasn't  more  than  six  years  after  he  organized  the 
Overland  Company  that  he  was  offered  $80,000,000  for 
his  share  of  the  company ! 

That  is  considered,  in  the  industrial  world  to-day,  as 
"  some  organizing."  It  is  little  wonder  that  when  he 
offered  the  powers  at  Washington  to  do  his  bit,  some 
one  said  "  He's  a  great  organizer !  "  Another,  "  He's 
a  great  hustler."  And  they  certainly  sized  him  up  cor- 
rectly. 

Right  on  top  of  his  tremendous  success  as  an  auto- 
mobile manufacturer,  Mr.  Willys  entered  the  field  of 
aeronautics,  becoming  the  head  of  the  Curtiss,  Airplane 
&  Motor  Company  of  Buffalo,  K  Y. 

For  more  than  twenty  years  Willys  and  Curtiss  had 
been  friends,  but  it  had  never  entered  into  Mr.  Willys' 


JOHN  NORTH  WILLYS  307 

head  to  add  airship-making  to  motor-car  making,  until 
Mr.  Curtiss  told  him  his  company  needed  a  practical 
business  man  to  run  it.  This  was  just  before  the  United 
States  entered  the  war.  Mr.  Willys,  with  his  usual 
foresight,  felt  sure  the  nation  was  on  the  brink  of  de- 
claring hostilities  against  Germany  and  her  allies,  and 
foresaw  how  the  Curtiss  company  would  do  a  big  busi- 
ness in  supplying  our  Government  with  its  product. 
It  seemed  a  patriotic  duty  to  go  to  the  assistance  of  such 
a  vitally  necessary  industry  in  view  of  the  nearness  of 
war. 

Mr.  Curtiss  wanted  to  devote  his  whole  time  to  in- 
vention —  to  the  working  out  of  his  ideas  and  plans 
in  connection  with  airplanes  and  seaplanes,  so  he  urged 
his  old  friend  Willys  to  take  the  Curtiss  Company's 
helm,  and  so  relieve  him  of  business  and  financial 
worries. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  John  North  Willys  became 
the  president  of  the  huge  Curtiss  Airplane  Company 
and,  after  war  broke  out,  he  certainly  made  things  hum. 
In  one  year  he  supplied  our  Navy  with  more  than  four 
hundred  seaplanes,  and  was  turning  out  airplanes  at 
the  rate  of  five  hundred  a  month. 

He  is  a  great  organizer  —  a  great  executive  —  that's 
why. 

John  North  Willys  is  a  good  type  of  the  hustling 
American  with  plenty  of  horse-sense. 

He  got  some  valuable  business  experience  in  his 
youthful  days  when  he  was  running  his  bicycle  store 
in  Canandaigua,  and  where  he  sold  his  goods  mostly 
on  credit,  under  the  impression  that  everybody  was 


308  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

honest.  "  It  was  the  best  business  lesson  I  ever  had," 
he  relates,  "  as  it  opened  my  eyes  to  the  stern  realities 
of  business  and  taught  me  judgment  and  good  horse- 
sense." 

Since  then  he  has  succeeded  in  everything  he  has 
undertaken,  and  to-day  is  one  of  America's  largest  em- 
ployers of  labor,  and  one  of  the  world's  greatest  indus- 
trial captains. 


FRANK  W.  WOOLWORTH 

MAGICIAN  OF  THE  5  AND  10  CENT  STORE 


FRANK  AY.  WOOLWORTH 


FRANK  W.  WOOLWORTH 

MAGICIAN"  OF  THE  5  AND  10  CENT  STORE 

THE  ability  to  see  an  opportunity  when  it  comes 
along  and  make  the  most  of  it  is  not  of  course 
given  to  every  boy.  But  there  are  boys  —  and 
men,  too  —  who  couldn't  recognize  an  opportunity,  even 
if  it  were  as  big  as  a  haystack.  There  was  a  farmer's 
boy  in  New  York  State  whose  parents  were  so  poor 
that  he  had  to  go  barefooted  half  the  year  and,  during 
the  winters,  no  matter  how  severe  they  were,  had  to  go 
about  without  any  overcoat. 

Under  such  hard  conditions  it  is  no  wonder  the  boy 
came  more  and  more  to  dislike  the  farm,  on  which  he 
did  every  kind  of  work,  and  left  it  before  he  was  six- 
teen to  seek  his  fortune  in  the  world  of  business. 

This  boy  lived  to  build  on  Broadway,  N"ew  York 
City,  the  tallest  building  in  the  world  —  a  cathedral  of 
commerce  costing  all  told  about  $12,000,000  —  and  to 
see  the  tiny  business  he  founded  upon  his  "  5-cent  idea  " 
grow  to  one  thousand  thirty-eight  stores  doing  a  busi- 
ness of  nearly  $110,000,000  annually. 

This  boy  was  Erank  W.  Wool  worth,  who  died  in 
1919,  leaving  a  fortune  of  $70,000,000,  including  the 
magnificent  Woolworth  Building,  America's  highest 
beacon  of  commerce,  and  several  fine  residences. 

Frank  Woolworth  was  seven  years  old  when  his  par- 
311 


312     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTEY 

ents  moved  from  Rodman,  New  York,  where  the  boy  was 
born  on  April  12,  1852,  to  Great  Bend  in  the  same 
State.  His  parents  and  ancestors  for  many  generations 
were  Methodists,  and  he  was  brought  up  very  strictly. 
Like  the  boy  Rockefeller,  Frank  Woolworth  more  than 
once  got  a  whipping  "  on  account "  for  some  as  yet  un- 
committed transgression.  As  a  boy  he  had  to  toe  the 
line  pretty  hard.  His  youth  was  not  a  "  soft  "  one. 

His  father  was  a  farmer  and  the  boy's  life  was  a 
hard,  dreary  round  of  humdrum  farm  duties.  There 
was  nothing  he  did  not  do  in  the  farm-work  line.  It 
was  all  work  and  no  play.  He  was  glad  when  the  win- 
ters came  and  he  could  go  to  school,  so  he  could  play 
during  recess.  But  he  never  learned  to  skate,  because 
no  one  ever  gave  him  a  pair  of  skates  and  of  course 
he  had  no  money  to  buy  any.  Skates  were  luxuries  far 
out  of  his  reach. 

He  made  the  most  of  his  opportunities  at  school,  pick- 
ing up  knowledge  as  rapidly  as  any  other  boy,  and 
joining  in  all  kinds  of  games  and  sports.  He  was  a 
healthy,  normal  lad,  though  thin. 

As  he  grew  up  his  farm  work  became  more  and  more 
irksome,  and  the  ambition  formed  in  him  of  being  a 
railroad  engineer  —  or  merchant.  He  loved  to  play, 
with  his  younger  brother,  at  keeping  shop,  and  would 
ransack  the  house  for  articles  to  stock  his  counter  — 
the  family  dining-table.  His  parents  rather  encour- 
aged him  in  his  idea  of  becoming  a  clerk  in  a  store,  for 
they  were  satisfied  that  he  would  never  be  happy  as  a 
farmer,  for  his  heart  was  not  in  the  work.  He  had 
become  fascinated  by  the  idea  of  "  selling  goods,"  and 


FRANK  W.  WOOLWORTH  313 

the  young  fellow  who  sold  things  in  the  village  store 
"  was  the  object  of  my  supreme  envy,"  he  once  said. 

At  sixteen  he  was  beginning  to  get  some  idea  of  what 
he  wanted  to  do  for  a  living  some  day.  So  he  left  the 
public  school  and  for  two  winters,  at  a  commercial 
school  at  Watertown,  laid  the  foundation  of  a  good 
knowledge  of  accounts  and  business  usages. 

After  this  necessary  grounding  in  the  science  of  ac- 
counts, the  boy  felt  ready  to  make  his  plunge  into  busi- 
ness. So  one  freezing  morning  bright  and  early  Frank 
Woolworth  hitched  the  old  mare  to  a  cutter  and  drove 
to  Carthage,  where  he  doggedly  drove  from  store  to 
store  seeking  a  job.  He  was  turned  down  with  scant 
ceremony  all  along  the  line,  for  nobody  wanted  an  ill- 
dressed,  raw,  awkward  country  boy.  But  when  he  went 
home,  "  jobless,"  he  was  more  determined  than  ever  to 
get  into  a  store,  for  a  trader's  instinct  was  rapidly  de- 
veloping in  him.  The  rebuffs  only  strengthened  his 
resolution,  for  he  had  the  right  stuff  in  him.  He  was 
gritty. 

At  Great  Bend,  where  the  family  lived,  there  was  a 
railroad  station  —  a  small  country  railroad  depot  — 
and  Frank,  deciding  that  he'd  have  to  get  started,  some- 
how, offered  his  services,  without  pay,  to  the  station- 
master,  who  kept  a  small  grocery  store  in  the  rear  of  a 
freight  shed.  He  decided  to  work  for  nothing  in  order 
to  get  experience  in  selling  and  handling  goods.  In 
this  way  he  became  assistant  station-master,  without 
pay,  and  started  in  selling  goods  and  tickets,  making  out 
reports,  and  doing  such  other  simple  clerical  work  as 
came  his  way. 


314     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

While  working  at  the  depot  Frank  made  quite  a 
number  of  acquaintances,  and  this  is  something  that 
every  young  man  ought  to  do.  The  larger  his  circle  of 
friends,  the  better  chance  there  is  for  him  to  get  on 
in  the  world. 

While  working  at  the  depot  he  never  relaxed  his 
efforts  to  get  into  a  regular  store,  and  he  turned  down 
an  offer  from  an  uncle  of  $18  a  month,  with  board  and 
lodging,  to  work  on  his  farm,  for  he  was  now  fixed  in 
his  determination  to  be  a  merchant. 

He  had  a  good  friend  in  Daniel  McNeil,  who  ran  the 
big  general  store  at  Great  Bend,  and  who  promised  to 
try  to  find  him  a  job  in  Water  town.  Frank,  almost 
twenty-one,  yet  not  earning  a  dollar,  was  becoming  im- 
patient over  his  future  and  used  to  see  Mr.  McNeil 
every  night  to  see  if  he  had  any  news.  After  a  long, 
weary  suspense,  Mr.  McNeil  at  last  told  him  a  man 
named  Augsbury  in  Watertown  was  willing  to  see  him 
and  look  him  over. 

You  may  be  sure  that  Frank  lost  no  time  in  reach- 
ing Watertown  and  getting  together  with  Augsbury  & 
Moore,  drygoods  merchants.  He  naturally  expected  a 
small  salary  to  start  with,  but  the  firm  had  an  idea 
that  he  ought  to  "  pay  for  tuition  "  while  learning  the 
business.  This  did  not  seem  quite  fair  to  Frank. 
However  they  "  split  the  difference "  by  agreeing  to 
give  him  $3  a  week,  after  three  months7  work  for  noth- 
ing, and  to  raise  his  salary  fifty  cents  a  week  every 
six  months  thereafter.  During  the  three  months  he 
worked  for  nothing  all  he  lived  on  was  $50  —  his  sav- 
ings for  ten  years ! 


FEANK  W.  WOOLWORTH  315 

"  Leaving  my  father  and  mother  to  strike  out  in 
the  world  and  tackle  an  uncertainty/'  said  Mr.  Wool- 
worth  once,  "  was  the  hardest  experience  of  my  whole 
life." 

On  a  bitterly  cold  day  in  March,  1873,  with  three 
feet  of  snow  on  the  ground,  the  young  man  left  home 
for  Watertown,  his  father,  who  was  taking  a  load  of 
potatoes  there,  driving  him  over. 

"  As  the  sleigh  drove  away  I  could  see  my  mother 
standing  at  the  door,  and  she  stood  there  as  long  as  I 
was  in  sight.  Her  letters  to  me  during  the  early  years 
of  my  struggle  to  make  good  were  the  most  beautiful, 
the  most  inspiring,  any  mother  ever  wrote  to  her 
boy." 

When  the  boy  reached  Watertown  and  hunted  up  Mr. 
Augsbury,  who  was  sick  at  home,  he  said: 

"  Hello,  Bub !  —  Say,  Bub,  don't  they  wear  collars 
or  ties  up  where  you  live  ?  " 

As  a  matter  of  fact  they  didn't,  so  poor  "  Bub  "  had 
to  make  deep  inroads  into  his  small  savings  getting  col- 
lars and  ties  and  replacing  his  flannel  with  white  shirts. 
A  haircut  completed  his  metamorphosis  from  a  "  hay- 
seed " —  a  "  rube  " —  into  a  citified  store  clerk. 

It  was  quite  a  time  after  starting  to  work  for  Augs- 
bury &  Moore  (afterwards  Moore  &  Smith)  of  Water- 
town  before  Frank  Woolworth,  in  the  opinion  of  his 
bosses,  amounted  to  anything.  A  raw  country  boy,  he 
was  naturally  slow  and  awkward  at  first.  He  could 
never  find  the  goods  a  customer  asked  for,  or  remember 
the  price,  or  make  out  a  sales  check.  For  a  long  time 
he  was  permitted  to  wait  upon  customers  only  during 


316     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

the  noon  hour.  All  the  drudgery  was  his  to  do,  and 
the  clerks  turned  their  noses  up  at  him  because  he  was 
only  a  farmer's  boy,  and  ridiculed  his  awkward  attempts 
to  sell  goods. 

His  hours  of  work  —  and  interminably  long  they 
seemed  —  were  from  7  A.  M.  to  10  p.  M. 

His  progress  was  indeed  slow.  After  five  years  of 
the  hardest  kind  of  work,  his  salary,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
six,  was  only  $6.00  a  week !  No  wonder  he  jumped  at 
what  he  thought  was  an  opportunity.  For,  hearing  of 
a  vacancy  in  the  store  of  a  man  named  Bushnell,  he 
applied  for  it,  asking  $10.00  a  week.  To  his  surprise, 
Bushnell  said :  "  All  right,  when  will  you  com- 
mence ?  " 

On  this  big  salary  he  felt  justified  in  getting  mar- 
ried. 

But  alas!  in  a  couple  of  months  Bushnell  cut  his 
pay  down  to  $8,  finding  fault  with  his  ability  as  a 
salesman  and  because  he  trimmed  the  windows.  "  I 
want  you  to  sell  goods  —  nothing  else !  "  he  snarled. 

This  blame  for  poor  business  and  the  cut  in  pay  had 
a  serious  affect  upon  young  Woolworth.  He  became 
despondent,  and  worried  to  such  an  extent  that  he  was 
stricken  down  with  nervous  prostration.  He  also  con- 
tracted a  fever.  He  nearly  died,  back  there  at  the  farm, 
and  in  his  year-long  sickness  his  mother  greatly  com- 
forted him.  She  never  lost  faith  in  him.  "  Some  day, 
my  son,  you'll  be  a  rich  man,"  was  her  comforting  as- 
surance. 

When  he  had  fully  recovered  a  man  came  along  who 
was  so  anxious  to  sell  his  four-acre  farm  that  he  offered 


FEANK  W.  WOOLWOETH  317 

it  to  him  for  $900.  Wool  worth  had  no  money,  but 
nevertheless,  by  raising  $600  on  mortgage  and  giving 
his  note  for  $300,  he  grabbed  the  opportunity. 

He  raised  chickens  and  potatoes  and  anything  and 
everything  that  would  bring  in  a  dollar,  his  wife  helping 
him  in  his  farming.  And  you  may  be  sure  it  was  a 
terrible  struggle  to  make  both  ends  meet. 

After  four  months,  to  his  surprise,  his  old  employers 
Moore  &  Smith  sent  for  him  and  offered  him  $10  a  week 
to  come  back  and  "  tone  up  "  the  store.  Woolworth  was 
greatly  elated  and  his  confidence  in  himself  returned. 
For,  since  he  had  started  out  in  the  world  of  work  to 
earn  his  living,  this  was  practically  the  first  recognition 
he  had  received  of  the  value  of  his  services  anywhere. 
He  had  put  a  tremendous  lot  of  hard  work  into  the  years 
he  had  been  at  Moore  &  Smith's,  and,  as  it  seemed  to 
him,  they  at  last  appreciated  his  devotion  to  their  in- 
terests. 

So  young  Woolworth  went  back  to  his  old  job,  his 
wife  remaining  on  the  farm  until  later  on  when  he 
rented  a  three-room  home  in  Watertown. 

In  one  year  he  had  saved  $50,  in  addition  to  loaning 
his  father  —  who  was  very  hard  up  —  $20  and  paying 
the  doctor's  bill,  for  at  this  time  his  first  baby  was 
born. 

It  was  on  February  22,  1879,  that  Frank  Woolworth 
started  his  first  five-cent  store  in  Utica,  E".  Y.,  and 
how  he  came  to  do  this  is  the  most  interesting  story  of 
his  marvelous  career,  for  it  hinges  upon  an  idea  —  the 
idea  upon  which  he  built  up  one  of  the  greatest  busi- 
nesses and  fortunes  of  modern  times, 


318     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

This  was  the  5  ancj  10  cent  stores  idea,  and  this  is 
how  it  originated: 

On  a  certain  hot  day  in  August,  1878,  Mr.  ^Moore 
said  to  young  Wool  worth :  "  What  more  can  you  do 
to  earn  your  salary  ?  " 

Trade  was  a  bit  dull ! 

"  Well/'  replied  Woolworth,  after  a  moment's  re- 
flection, "I'd  like  to  try  to  sell  some  of  the  goods  around 
this  store  that  people  have  been  slow  in  buying.  Give 
me  a  table  and  a  little  space  and  I  think  I  can  work 
out  an  idea." 

"  Go  ahead !  "  was  Mr.  Moore's  crisp  reply. 

The  only  thing  available  was  a  small  sewing  ma- 
chine table.  On  this  young  Woolworth  arranged  some 
of  the  shop-worn  goods,  and  stuck  up  a  sign : 

Any  Article  on  this  counter  5  cents. 

The  goods  went  like  hot  cakes  —  nearly  every  article 
was  sold  the  first  day. 

And  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  idea  of  selling  an 
assortment  of  goods  at  a  uniformly  low  price. 

Young  Woolworth  continued  selling  five-cent  goods 
for  Mr.  Moore  and  their  popularity  in  Watertown  grew 
steadily.  Then  he  induced  Mr.  Moore  to  trust  him 
with  $300  in  five-cent  goods  to  start  a  five-cent  store 
of  his  own  in  Utica. 

The  young  merchant  did  very  well  for  a  time,  but  the 
variety  of  articles  he  could  sell  at  five  cents  was  small 
and  as  soon  as  people  had  supplied  themselves  with 
mirrors,  nail  files,  etc.,  his  custom  fell  off,  and  he  was 
at  his  wit's  end.  Where  to  get  new  and  different  ar- 
ticles to  sell  at  five  cents  was  his  knotty  problem. 


FEANK  W.  WOOLWOETH  319 

His  business  at  last  petered  out,  so  packing  the 
remainder  of  his  goods  he  flitted  to  Lancaster,  Pa., 
where  he  succeeded  in  getting  further  financial  back- 
ing, and  where  his  store  was  a  success  from  the 
start. 

In  a  very  little  while  Frank  W.  Woolworth  was  the 
sole  survivor  in  the  5-cent-store  field,  all  his  rivals, 
one  by  one,  had  given  up.  They  lacked  what  Woolworth 
had  —  grit,  persistence,  boldness,  and  originality  of 
ideas.  Soon  after  opening  at  Lancaster  he  manifested 
his  boldness,  his  courage,  by  opening  a  branch  at  Har- 
risburg,  where  he  put  in  his  brother,  C.  S.  Woolworth, 
as  manager.  He  dropped  this  venture  after  a  while, 
but  he  was  now  satisfied  beyond  doubt  that  he  had  found 
his  business  —  his  life  work.  He  was  certain  of  suc- 
cess. 

By  the  summer  of  1880  he  was  worth  $2000.  "  I 
felt  so  rich,"  Mr.  Woolworth  once  related,  "  that  I  de- 
cided to  take  the  first  vacation  I  had  ever  enjoyed." 

Eevisiting  Watertown  the  successful  young  merchant 
received  a  great  reception.  The  once  green  and  gawky 
country  lad  was  now  a  solid  and  prosperous  business 
man,  with  more  money  in  his  purse  than  almost  anybody 
in  the  town  had  ever  seen  in  their  lives. 

Eeturning  to  Lancaster,  Woolworth  now  decided  to 
fix  his  brother  up  in  some  way.  So,  after  some  study 
of  the  field,  he  sent  him  to  take  charge  of  a  five  and 
ten  cent  store  at  Scranton.  (His  brother  is  now  a  mil- 
lionaire.) 

Philadelphia  was  next  invaded  by  Woolworth,  but 
after  three  months  he  closed  the  store,  for  it  w«as  un- 


320     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

profitable,  and  opened  one  in  partnership  with  his 
cousin  S.  H.  Knox,'  in  Reading.  When  Mr.  Knox 
died  a  few  years  ago  he,  too,  was  a  multi-millionaire. 

In  spite  of  the  failure  of  three  out  of  five  of  his 
five  and  ten  cent  stores  Woolworth  was  undaunted. 
His  courage  never  waned,  for  he  knew  he  had  got  hold 
of  the  right  idea.  He  visioned  a  chain  of  successful 
stores  country  wide,  and  he  lived  to  see  his  dream  more 
than  come  true.  He  had  some  hard  sledding  occa- 
sionally, but  from  the  time  he  opened  successfully  in 
Harrisburg,  there  were  few  halts,  or  setbacks,  in  his 
whirlwind  career.  "  Excelsior "  (Upward  and  On- 
ward), the  motto  of  his  home  State,  New  York,  might 
well  have  been  his  own  battle-cry. 

But  before  any  really  big  success  came,  young  Wool- 
worth  had  many  things  to  learn.  When,  for  example, 
he  opened  a  store  in  New  York,  he  worked  day  and 
night.  He  was  his  own  bookkeeper,  salesman,  buyer 
and  everything  else.  After  an  attack  of  typhoid  fever, 
which  laid  him  up  for  eight  weeks,  he  had  the  conceit 
knocked  out  of  him  that  he  could  do  everything  —  buy, 
sell,  keep  books,  etc. —  more  efficiently  than  any  of  his 
associates.  He  learned  to  leave  details  to  others,  and 
to  occupy  his  mind  only  with  the  larger  affairs  of  the 
business  as  a  whole.  Many  business  men  who  insist 
upon  attending  to  every  detail  of  their  business  them- 
selves —  who  won't  trust  others  —  remain  in  one  little 
store  all  their  lives,  and  never  know  prosperity. 

Woolworth  early  learned  this  lesson  of  cooperation, 
and  from  then  on  he  succeeded  enormously.  Not  only 
did  he  trust  his  employees  to  do  lots  of  things  he  himself 


FEANK  W.  WOOLWORTH  321 

used  to  insist  upon  doing,  but  he  made  a  point  of  hav- 
ing a  partner  in  each  of  his  stores. 

His  idea  was  that  business  is  like  a  snowball,  "  One 
man  can  easily  push  it  along  for  a  while  but  soon  the 
snowball  gets  so  large  that  if  it  is  to  be  pushed  ahead, 
help  must  be  obtained  to  roll  it  —  and  if  you  don't  keep 
on  rolling  it,  it  will  soon  melt." 

Another  secret  of  Woolworth's  success  was  the  rep- 
utation he  gained  of  giving  "  value  for  value."  Then 
again  he  dealt  only  in  articles  of  "  universal  demand." 
He  didn't  attempt  to  sell  Siamese  elephants,  for  few 
people,  even  if  wealthy,  would  care  to  have  one  for  a 
pet.  Rather  he  sold  candy,  nursing  bottles,  hairpins. 
Of  handkerchiefs,  for  example,  he  sold,  in  1918,  fifty- 
four  million ! 

Early  in  his  career,  when  he  was  dashing  ahead  so 
fast  that  many  of  his  associates  thought  him  crazy,  he 
grasped  another  secret  of  success  —  that  the  more  of 
any  single  article  you  can  buy  at  one  time  the  cheaper 
you  can  get  it.  He  once  saw  a  finger  ring,  which  had 
been  manufactured  to  retail  at  50  cents.  Said  Wool- 
worth  to  the  manufacturer: 

"  I  want  that  ring  at  a  price  that  will  let  me  sell  it 
—  at  a  profit  —  for  ten  cents." 

The  manufacturer  laughed  consumedly  —  thought  it 
a  mighty  good  joke.  How  many  did  he  want  ?  A  hun- 
dred dozen,  perhaps? 

"  I  want  a  thousand  gross !  "  was  Wool  worth's  reply. 

Impossible!  Absurd!  Couldn't  be  done!  He 
could  never  make  the  ring  to  retail  at  ten  cents. 

Nonetheless  the  factory  was  soon  working  overtime  in 


322      FAMOUS  LEADEKS  OF  INDUSTBY 

their  effort  to  supply,  the  Wool  worth  stores  with  rings 
to  sell  at  ten  cents !  Woolworth  used  sixty  thousand 
dozen  in  one  year ! 

In  1918,  to  many  people's  amusement,  Woolworth  in- 
vaded the  highest-priced  shopping  district  in  the  world 
—  Fifth  Avenue  —  with  one  of  his  10-cent  stores.  It 
has  been  strikingly  successful,  above  forty-five  thousand 
people  entering  the  shop  the  first  day  of  its  opening. 

Woolworth's  active,  constructive  work  has  had  a 
marked  beneficial  effect  upon  American  manufacturing. 
His  expert  buyers  have  often  actually  not  only  been 
able  to  show  manufacturers  how  to  increase  their  effi- 
ciency and  output,  but  how  to  manufacture  lots  of 
things  formerly  bought  from  abroad.  He  taught  them 
how  to  make,  for  example,  celluloid  dolls  and  Christ- 
mas tree  ornaments.  Even  before  the  war  eighty-seven 
and  one-half  per  cent,  of  the  merchandise  he  bought  was 
"  made  in  U.  S.  A." 

The  cooperation  with  the  maker  of  goods  has  re- 
sulted in  a  large  development  and  expansion  in  this 
country's  manufacturing  industries  traceable  to  Wool- 
worth  methods. 

There  are  thirty-five  thousand  regular  employees  in 
the  Woolworth  stores  —  mostly  girls.  After  being  with 
Woolworth  one  year  each  employee  gets  a  cash  bonus 
at  Christmas,  and  when  a  girl  of  three  or  more  years  of 
service  leaves  to  get  married  she  received  a  substantial 
cash  wedding  present. 

Woolworth  made  no  mistake  when  he  determined  to 
bring  so  many  of  the  commonest  necessities  of  life 
within  reach  of  the  masses.  But  his  vast  business  was 


FEANK  W.  WOOLWORTH  323 

established  on  business,  not  philanthropic,  principles. 
He  sold  nothing  that  he  did  not  make  profit  on.  He 
sold  nothing  that  was  not  universally  used. 

Out  of  little  came  much.  The  tiny  acorn  became  a 
mighty  oak.  From  his  chain  of  stores,  in  the  United 
States,  Canada  and  Great  Britain,  with  their  more  than 
a  half  billion  customers  annually,  came  a  golden  harvest 
of  nickels  and  dimes.  He  enriched  himself,  and  en- 
riched many  others,  and,  as  a  lasting  monument  to  his 
extraordinary  energy  and  business  enterprise,  sturdy 
American  qualities  of  industry  and  plucky  endurance, 
the  Woolworth  Building  and  other  Woolworth  enter- 
prises, stand  to-day  his  best  memorial. 


ORVILLE  AND  WILBUR  WRIGHT 

WHO  ACHIEVED  IMMOKTAL  EAME  AS 
AIESHIP  INVENTOKS 


WILBUR  WRIGHT 


ORVILLE  AND  WILBUR  WRIGHT 

WHO  ACHIEVED  IMMOKTAL  FAME  AS 
AIESHIP  INVENTORS 

A  VERY  ingenious  but  quite  simple  toy  led  to  one 
of  the  most  startling  and  revolutionary  inven- 
tions in  the  history  of  the  world. 

Out  in  Ohio  lived  a  good  bishop,  known  as  Bishop 
Milton  Wright,  of  the  United  Brethren  Church.  He 
was  an  educated,  clever  man,  otherwise  he  would  never 
have  become  a  bishop.  Passing  a  toy-shop  one  day, 
he  became  greatly  interested  in  a  little  contrivance  in 
the  window  labeled  "  fly  ing-machine. "  The  toy  had  a 
Greek  name  —  helicopter,  or  something  like  that  —  and 
was  driven  by  twisted  rubber  bands,  which,  as  they 
untwisted,  turned  a  couple  of  cardboard  propellers. 
He  remembered  his  little  boys  at  home,  so  went  in  and 
bought  one. 

It  was  in  1878  when  Bishop  Wright  brought  home 
this  miniature  bamboo  and  cork  airship,  and,  holding 
it  concealed  in  his  hand,  to  excite  his  sons'  curiosity, 
suddenly  threw  it  up  in  the  air,  where,  of  course,  in- 
stead of  falling,  it  began  slowly  and  gracefully  to  fly. 

The  boys  voted  it  the  greatest  thing  in  the  toy  line 
they  had  ever  seen,  and  they  never  got  tired  watching 
its  simply  wonderful  flights  through  the  air.  Having 
no  pilot  aboard,  the  ship  seldom  flew  in  a  straight  line, 

327 


328     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

but  this  only  made  it  the  more  interesting,  for  its  gyra- 
tions in  the  air  were  erratic  and  quite  extraordinary. 

The  toy,  long  after  it  fell  to  pieces,  lingered  vividly  in 
the  boys7  memories,  and  whenever  they  saw  a  bird  sail- 
ing through  the  sky  they  remembered  their  "  bat,"  as 
they  had  christened  their  helicopter,  which,  by  the  way, 
was  invented  by  a  Frenchman  after  losing  the  use  of  his 
limbs  through  hip  disease. 

The  boys  had  inherited  mechanical  genius  through 
their  mother,  and,  from  an  early  age,  had  had  a  knack  of 
making  and  inventing  things.  So  a  few  years  later  the 
two  boys  —  Wilbur  and  Orville  Wright  —  put  in  all 
their  spare  time  constructing  toy  flying-machines  some- 
what resembling  their  "  bat,"  only  larger.  "  To  our 
amazement,"  the  brothers  once  related,  "  we  found  that 
the  larger  the  '  bat '  the  less  it  would  fly !  We  didn't 
know  then  that  doubling  the  linear  dimensions  of  a  ma- 
chine calls  for  a  motor  eight  times  more  powerful." 

For  the  time  being  the  brothers  stopped  experiment- 
ing with  airships  —  for  they  had  to  earn  their  bread 
and  butter  —  and  began  to  manufacture  bicycles,  with 
a  safety-brake  of  their  own  invention.  They  had  no 
great  success  in  this  business,  however,  only  about  man- 
aging to  hold  their  own. 

In  1896,  when  Lilienthal  was  dashed  to  death 
from  his  flying-machine,  the  news  made  a  great 
impression  upon  the  Wright  brothers,  and  they 
now  began  to  seriously  study  aeronautics.  They  first 
tackled  Chanute's  book,  then  Langley's  and  devoured 
endless  articles  and  treatises  on  the  subject.  They 
even  sent  to  Europe  for  Lilienthal's  book,  for  he  had 


OKVILLE  AND  WILBUE  WEIGHT     329 

evolved,  seemingly,  the  best,  yet  simplest,  ideas.  "  Who- 
ever would  conquer  the  air,"  he  declared,  "  must  imi- 
tate the  bird's  dexterity  —  must  fly  and  fall,  and  fall 
and  fly,  until  he  can  fly  without  falling."  They  also 
studied  Mouillard's  "  Empire  of  the  Air,"  and  read  all 
the  aeronautic  magazines. 

Out  of  their  intense,  thorough  study  of  aeronautics 
grew  the  conviction  that  airships  built  upon  the  then 
current  principles  could  have  no  practical  value.  So 
they  began  to  experiment  and  at  last  to  make  flying- 
machines  based  upon  their  own  theories. 

In  1900,  having  at  last  constructed  a  ship  to  their 
satisfaction,  the  brothers  spent  their  vacation  in  North 
Carolina,  where  their  first  experimental  flight  was  made 
one  momentous  October  day  at  Kitty  Hawk.  ~No  op- 
erator was  aboard  their  machine,  for  they  flew  it  like 
a  kite,  testing  equilibrium,  etc.,  by  means  of  cords  which 
they  controlled  from  the  ground. 

The  results  were  tremendously  encouraging,  and  in 
the  summer  of  1901  Mr.  Chanute  spent  several  weeks 
with  the  Wrights  at  their  testing  camp  near  Kitty 
Hawk,  offering  suggestions  and  advice  from  time  to 
time  as  he  watched  the  evolutions  of  their  ship.  The 
more  they  experimented  the  more  numerous  and  com- 
plex grew  the  problems  that  had  to  be  solved  before 
success  was  theirs,  and  what  the  young  men  had  started 
in  to  do,  more  for  amusement  than  anything  else,  now 
loomed  up  as  something  formidably  scientific.  They 
were  under  the  necessity  of  studying  air,  air-currents, 
wind-pressures  and  velocities,  the  reciprocal  effects  of 
superposed  surfaces,  etc.,  but  all  these  and  other  mys- 


330     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

teries  of  aviation,  instead  of  daunting,  fascinated  the 
brothers  and  encouraged  them  all  the  more  to  master 
the  secrets  of  aerial  navigation. 

So  on  they  went  with  their  experiments,  in  the  fall 
of  1902  making  about  a  thousand  ground  flights  — 
short  hops,  grasshopper  fashion,  along  the  ground. 

By  this  time  everybody  was  smiling  at  "  the  Wright 
boys."  They  were  called  "  visionaries/'  even  "  nuts," 
and  a  very  learned  man  proved  conclusively,  by  mathe- 
matics, that  no  heavier-than-air  machine  could  support 
itself  in  air,  much  less  fly ! 

But  the  Wright  brothers  went  calmly,  deliberately, 
scientifically  ahead,  thoroughly  testing,  before  adopt- 
ing, any  part  or  device  used  in  their  plane.  They 
tested  the  efficiency  of  their  steering-gear,  the  sustain- 
ing capacity  of  their  wings,  and  then  they  designed  and 
started  in  to  construct  a  practicable  plane  driven  by  a 
motor.  When  they  came  to  add  propellers,  however, 
another  scientific  problem  faced  them  —  screw  propul- 
sion. They  could  get  no  tables  from  naval  engineers, 
so  their  first  propellers  were  constructed  on  a  "  dead 
reckoning "  basis.  Notwithstanding  they  got  a  third 
more  power  than  either  Maxim  or  Langley  had  ob- 
tained. 

At  last  arrived  the  great  day!  The  greatest  day  in 
the  lives  of  these  two  indomitable,  persevering  souls, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  day  in  the  history  of  American 
invention. 

It  was  on  the  17th  of  December,  1903,  that  Wilbur 
Wright  (now  dead)  climbed  into  his  motor-aeroplane, 
turned  on  the  power,  and  flew!  His  glide  lasted  but 


OEVILLE  AND  WILBUR  WEIGHT     331 

twelve  seconds,  but,  since  the  world  began,  it  was  the 
first  time  a  machine  carrying  a  man  'had  arisen  of  its 
own  power,  described  a  circle  in  the  air  and  finally 
descended  safely  to  earth. 

Up  to  this  time  the  brothers  had  conducted  their  ex- 
periments far  from  the  madding  crowd,  in  a  spot  where 
their  only  visitors  were  the  "  mocking  "  birds  that  flew 
inquisitively  over  them.  They  now  determined  to  give 
a  demonstration  at  their  busy  home,  Dayton,  and  in 
the  spring  of  1904  a  flight  was  attempted  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  large  crowd,  including  newspaper  men  —  all 
very  skeptical. 

By  this  time  the  inventors  had  a  heavier  and  stronger 
machine;  but  on  the  first  day  of  the  great  public  dem- 
onstration there  wasn't  wind  enough  to  lift  the  plane, 
and  all  it  did  was  to  bump  along  the  ground  a  little 
way.  Another  trial,  the  next  day,  was  also  unsuc- 
cessful, for  the  motor  went  wrong.  Some  slight  defect 
developed,  and  it  wouldn't  go. 

There  arose  also  new  problems  of  equilibrium  to 
solve,  so  the  brothers  had  to  do  some  more  private  experi- 
menting. 

Finally,  in  September,  1905,  the  brothers  succeeded 
in  making  a  long  flight.  At  a  height  of  about  a  hun- 
dred feet  they  sped  six  miles  and  back  in  the  air. 

The  two  Dayton  boys  had  won!  In  less  than  five 
years  these  two  plucky  and  courageous  American  boys 
had  solved  the  problem  of  navigating  the  air  —  had  suc- 
ceeded where  countless  other  aeronautical  pioneers  the 
world  over  had  failed. 

Tremendous  excitement  followed  this  feat,  and  the 


332     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

crowds  to  see  the  airmen  were  so  great  that  the  Wrights 
had  to  continue  their  flights  in  a  quieter  place. 

About  now  their  money  gave  out,  for  their  bicycle 
business,  having  been  neglected  for  some  time,  was 
bringing  them  in  nothing.  So,  although  they  had  per- 
fected their  airplane,  they  had  no  funds  for  further 
flights  or  experiments.  But  the  young  men  had  a  good 
friend  in  their  sister  Katherine.  She  had  saved  some 
money  from  her  salary  as  school-teacher,  was  devoted  to 
Orville  and  Wilbur,  and  had  full  faith  in  their  in- 
vention. She  placed  all  her  savings  at  the  disposal  of 
the  young  aviators,  so  they  could  continue  exhibiting 
their  machine  and  experimenting. 

It  was  a  solemn,  impressive  moment  in  the  lives  of 
the  Wright  boys  when,  having  thoroughly  demonstrated 
the  practicability  of  their  airship,  a  realization  of  what 
their  wonderful  discovery  meant  to  their  country  and 
to  the  world  burst  over  them.  As  in  a  vision,  they  fore- 
saw all  the  marvelous  possibilities  of  aerial  navigation. 
And  they  were  awestricken ! 

They  had  called  a  spirit  "  from  the  vasty  deep,"  so 
to  speak,  and  it  had  come  at  their  bidding.  What 
should  they  do  with  this  newly-acquired  and  potentially 
terrible  discovery  which  enabled  them,  at  will,  to  leave 
the  earth  and  fly  immense  distances  at  immense  heights  ? 

It  was  a  solemn  and  awesome  moment  when  the  young 
men  pondered  these  things,  and  they  determined  to 
call  a  family  council.  So  the  two  brothers,  their  father 
and  sister  gathered  one  day  in  the  parlor  of  their  mod- 
est dwelling,  and  all  fell  on  their  knees  and  prayed 
to  God  for  guidance.  The  prayer  over,  good  old  Bishop 


OEVILLE  AND  WILBUR  WEIGHT     333 

Wright,  his  face  wet  with  tears  of  joy  and  thankfulness, 
arose,  and  then  the  family  decided  that  they  must  offer 
the  invention  to  their  country.  Being  essentially  re- 
ligious, godfearing  people  and  intensely  patriotic,  their 
country  was  their  first  thought.  No  thought  of  com- 
mercial gain  entered  into  their  minds. 

So  the  brothers  wrote  to  Washington,  to  the  War 
Department,  to  the  effect  that  they  had  constructed 
an  aeroplane  that  would  navigate  the  air,  and  offered 
the  invention  to  the  United  States. 

The  letter  was  pigeon-holed ! 

The  Wrights  were  very  poor  people.  They  could 
not  afford  to  go  to  the  Capital  and  present  the  claims 
of  their  epoch-making  invention  in  person.  So  they 
wrote  to  Washington  again.  Then  they  received  a 
somewhat  curt  refusal  to  consider  the  proposition,  add- 
ing that  they  had  no  time  to  send  a  board  to  Ohio 
to  examine  into  the  claims  of  f(  a  couple  of  cranks." 

And  this  was  how  the  United  States  Government  let 
still  another  great  American  invention  slip  through  its 
fingers. 

The  Wrights  were  deeply  chagrined,  and,  as  their 
money  was  nearly  exhausted,  the  outlook  was  black  — 
for  them  and  their  invention.  But,  fortunately,  there 
was  in  New  York  City  a  man  who  had  a  vision. 

This  man  was  Charles  E.  Flint,  a  born  financier  and 
organizer,  and  he  had  read  of  the  Wrights'  experiments 
with  the  deepest  interest.  He  invited  the  brothers  to 
come  to  New  York  to  see  him.  The  two  country  boys 
arrived  in  the  metropolis  soon  after  dawn,  about  7  A.  M. 
—  for  this  hour  seemed  to  them  as  late  as  they  ought 


334     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

to  call  —  and  presented  themselves  at  the  handsome 
Flint  residence.  Mr.  Flint  wasn't  up  and  dressed,  but 
he  threw  on  his  dressing-gown  —  for  he  didn't  want  to 
keep  the  two  inventors  waiting  —  and  came  down  to  see 
them. 

Mr.  Flint  had  a  long  conversation  with  the  young  men, 
and  was  thoroughly  convinced  of  their  honesty  and 
knowledge  of  aeronautics,  and  of  the  success  of  their 
biplane.  As  they  left  the  breakfast-room  Mr.  Flint 
said: 

"  You  may  draw  upon  our  firm  for  $10,000." 

This  gave  Orville  and  Wilbur  Wright  the  sinews  of 
war,  and  they  were  now  able  to  take  out  patents,  and 
start  manufacturing  their  airships.  They  were  also 
able  now  to  exhibit  their  machine  and  demonstrate  its 
capabilities  at  home  and  abroad,  for  one  of  the  brothers 
went  to  France  to  fly. 

While  Wilbur,  in  France,  was  making  even  Kings 
gasp,  Orville  at  home  was  astonishing  the  natives. 

On  September  9,  1908,  at  Fort  Myer,  Virginia,  Or- 
ville ascended  in  his  machine,  and  broke  all  records  by 
remaining  up  in  the  air  fifty-seven  minutes.  The  same 
day,  in  the  afternoon,  he  made  a  flight  lasting  more 
than  an  hour,  and,  on  his  return  to  earth,  he  went  up 
again,  this  time  taking  a  passenger!  On  this  occa- 
sion he  broke  the  world's  record  for  a  two-man  aerial 
flight. 

About  this  time  the  United  States  War  Department 
began  to  get  interested,  for  they  foresaw  the  wonderful 
possibilities  of  the  airship  in  warfare.  So  they  in- 
vited bids  for  an  aeroplane  to  carry  two  persons  and 


ORVILLE    WRIGHT 


ORVILLE  AND  WILBUR  WEIGHT     335 

fly  for  an  hour  at  a  speed  of  forty  miles.  Orville 
thought  he  could  meet  -these  requirements  and  on  Sep- 
tember 17,  at  Fort  Myer,  he  took  Lieutenant  Self- 
ridge  up  with  him.  And  now  occurred  the  first  fa- 
tality in  the  history  of  American  aeronautics,  for  after 
a  few  minutes  an  accident  to  the  propeller  dashed  the 
machine  to  earth,  killing  the  lieutenant  and  injuring 
the  inventor  somewhat  seriously. 

While  these  experiments  were  being  conducted  in 
America  by  Orville,  Wilbur  was  busy  in  France,  and, 
a  week  after  the  accident  to  Orville,  Wilbur,  on  Sep- 
tember 24,  made  a  wonderful  flight  at  Le  Mans,  travel- 
ing in  the  air  twenty-five  miles  and  remaining  up  al- 
most fifty-six  minutes. 

Three  months  later,  on  December  18th,  Wilbur  suc- 
ceeded in  beating  all  aviation  records  up  to  that  date  by 
staying  up  almost  two  hours,  during  which  time  he  cov- 
ered twenty-five  miles.  The  same  day  he  made  another 
sensational  ascent  —  three  hundred  feet  —  and  the 
"  Yankee  bluffer,"  as  the  French  called  him,  before  he 
got  through,  had  won  all  the  prizes  on  French  soil  for 
which  he  had  striven. 

Better  than  all  —  for  of  course  the  brothers  were 
in  great  need  of  capital  —  Wilbur  sold  the  French  rights 
to  his  machine  to  a  French  financier  and  promoter  for 
$100,000. 

The  next  year  Italy  paid  $200,000  for  the  Italian 
rights  to  the  Wright  aeroplane. 

These  European  flights  caused  amazement  abroad,  and 
excited  overpowering  curiosity.  The  late  King  Ed- 
ward, traveling  under  his  incognito  of  the  Duke  of  Lan- 


336     FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTRY 

caster,  came  a  long  way  to  see  Wilbur  fly,  and,  after 
one  of  his  flights,  grasped  both  his  hands,  and  later 
permitted  himself  to  be  snap-shotted  with  the  "  man 
bird,"  as  the  French  now  began  to  call  the  daring 
aviator.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  boy's  sister, 
Katherine,  made  an  ascent  with  Wilbur  lasting  half  an 
hour.  She  alighted  close  to  the  King,  who  warmly  con- 
gratulated her  upon  her  intrepidity  and  safe  return  to 
earth.  King  Alfonso  of  Spain  and  also  King  Victor 
Emmanuel  of  Italy,  came  to  see  the  Wrights  fly. 

"  Kings  are  just  like  other  nice  well-bred  agreeable 
people,'7  was  Katherine  Wright's  opinion  after  meet- 
ing and  chatting  with  some  half-dozen  sovereigns. 

On  their  return  to  America  from  hobnobbing  with 
royalties  and  great  capitalists,  Wilbur  and  his  sister  got 
a  rousing  reception  in  their  home  town,  and  you  may 
be  sure  that  no  one  was  more  pleased  to  see  them  back 
safe  than  their  aged  father,  who  had  sold  his  farm  — 
all  the  property  he  had  in  the  world  —  to  enable  his  two 
boys  to  go  on  experimenting  with  their  "  bat."  Had 
they  failed,  it  would  have  meant  utter  ruin  to  good  old 
Bishop  Wright. 

On  June  10,  1909,  in  the  historic  East  Room  at  the 
Capitol,  Washington,  President  Taft  presented  gold 
medals,  on  behalf  of  the  Aero  Club  of  America,  to  Or- 
ville  and  Wilbur  Wright.  Mr.  Taft,  referring  to  the 
brothers'  achievements  in  their  own  and  other  countries 
with  a  heavier-than-air  machine,  called  it  a  "  great  step 
in  human  discovery."  "  Many  great  discoveries,"  the 
President  added,  "  have  come  by  accident.  Men  work- 
ing in  one  direction  have  happened  on  a  truth  that  de- 


ORVILLE  AND  WILBUR  WRIGHT     337 

veloped  itself  into  a  great  discovery,  but  you  have  illus- 
trated the  other,  and,  on  the  whole,  much  more  com- 
mendable method. 

"  You  planned  what  you  wished  to  find,  and  then  you 
worked  over  it  until  you  found  it." 

These  last  words  of  President  Taft's  give  in  a  nut- 
shell the  secret  of  the  Wrights'  success  —  the  persever- 
ing development  of  an  idea. 

Wilbur  Wright  created  an  immense  sensation  in  New 
York  City  when  he  flew  from  Governor's  Island  up  to 
and  beyond  Grant's  Tomb  and  back.  This  was  during 
the  Hudson-Fulton  celebration  when  the  river  was  filled 
with  our  own  and  foreign  warships.  As  he  flew  up 
the  Hudson,  less  than  two  hundred  feet  above  many 
of  these  marine  monsters,  the  value  of  the  airship  in 
war  became  startlingly  apparent,  for  he  could  have 
successfully  bombed  any  one  of  them. 

The  following  month  the  French  Government  pre- 
sented the  Wright  brothers  with  the  Cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor  —  a  much  coveted  distinction,  and  later  on 
Bother  medals,  decorations  and  honors  came  the  way  of 
these  two  marvelously  courageous  and  clever  Yankee 
mechanics. 

The  problem  of  navigating  the  air  safely  and  expedi- 
tiously  being  now  solved,  the  Wright  brothers  were  able 
to  organize  a  big  corporation  to  manufacture  Wright 
aeroplanes,  and  success  and  money  soon  came  their  way 
with  a  rush.  For  the  Wright  biplane  had  given  a 
tremendous  impetus  to  the  art  of  aeronautics,  the  whole 
world  was  making  airships  of  all  types,  and  govern- 
ments, too,  were  either  buying  or  manufacturing  air- 


338     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

vessels  for  war  purposes  —  for  transportation  of  mail. 

Thus,  through  steady  perseverance  in  the  face  of  all 
sorts  of  obstacles  and  difficulties,  did  these  two  boys  of 
Dayton,  Ohio,  win  fortune  and  immortality. 

In  the  annals  of  American  aeronautical  adventure 
and  discovery  these  two  inventors,  Orville  -and  Wilbur 
Wright,  rule  supreme. 


LINUS  YALE  AND  HENRY  R.  TOWNE 

WHO  EEVOLUTIONIZED  LOCK-MAKING 


LINUS  YALE  AND  HENRY  R.  TOWNE 

WHO  REVOLUTIONIZED  LOCK-MAKING 

THE  now  world-famous  "  Yale  "  lock  had  its  origin 
in  the  village  of  Newport,  Herkimer  County, 
New  York,  ahout  the  year  1840,  when  Linus 
Yale,  senior,  hegan  the  manufacture,  for  the  first  time, 
of  this  new  kind  of  lock.  They  were  described  as  "  pin- 
tumbler  "  locks,  and,  besides  their  novelty,  were  of  great 
mechanical  excellence. 

Linn  Yale,  junior,  was  born  in  1821  and  became  the 
foremost  lock-expert  in  the  country,  far  surpassing  in 
skill  and  inventive  genius  even  his  well-known  father. 

The  work  of  the  two  Yales,  father  and  son,  especially 
that  of  the  latter,  has  had  a  profound  and  lasting  influ- 
ence on  the  lock  industry.  Nearly  all  American  lock- 
makers,  and  many  foreign  countries,  have  adopted  the 
principles  of  lock  construction  introduced  by  them,  and 
have  followed  their  lead  in  making  improvements  in 
design  and  in  methods  of  production.  Linus  Yale, 
senior,  resurrected  the  ancient  pin-tumbler  of  the  Egyp- 
tians, and  adapted  it  to  modern  conditions  of  use,  while 
Linus  Yale,  junior,  by  combining  it  with  the  small  re- 
volving "  plug,"  made  possible  the  use  of  a  flat  key, 
and  by  embodying  the  tumblers  and  plug  in  a  separate 
unit,  or  "  cylinder,"  reduced  the  key  to  a  constant 

length  for  locks  of  all  kinds,  irrespective  of  the  thickness 

341 


342     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

of  the  door  on  which  used.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  to- 
day that  prior  to  1865  practically  all  keys  were  round, 
and  had  to  be  long  enough  to  reach  through  the  door  into 
the  lock,  and  that  a  bunch  of  keys  might  weigh  pounds 
where  it  now  weighs  only  ounces.  The  work  of  Linus 
Yale,  junior,  included  also  improvements  in  the  com- 
bination, or  dial,  lock  for  banks  which  were  funda- 
mentally sound  and  are  now  embodied  in  standard  prac- 
tice, and  the  metallic  front  postoffice  box,  now  the  ac- 
cepted standard  throughout  the  world. 

Linus,  from  an  early  age,  gave  evidence  of  mechani- 
cal ability.  When  he  was  not  at  the  village  school  or 
at  home  poring  over  his  books,  he  was  usually  to  be 
found  at  his  father's  small  plant,  playing  with  locks 
and  keys,  the  workmen's  tools,  and  rummaging  in  the 
junk  pile. 

But  the  boy,  as  well  as  having  inventive  talent,  had 
•artistic  tastes  and  loved  to  sketch  and  paint,  indoors 
and  out.  When  he  went  fishing  he  would  often  neglect 
the  fish  nibbling  at  his  bait,  to  make  a  sketch  of  a 
pretty  bit  of  landscape  or  of  a  bird  or  animal. 

After  he  was  all  through  with  his  schooling,  and  his 
father  asked  him  what  he  was  going  to  be  —  a  painter 
or  a  locksmith  —  he  said  he  thought  he'd  like  to  be  a 
painter. 

So  Linus,  junior,  began  his  career  as  an  artist,  and 
for  some  time  diligently  worked  at  his  profession, 
painting  portraits  and  landscapes  that  bore  the  im- 
press of  true  artistic  talent. 

Before  long,  however,  the  young  man's  inventive 
genius  began  to  assert  itself,  causing  him  to  turn  his 


LINUS  YALE  AND  HENRY  TOWNE      343 

attention  more  and  more  to  mechanical  pursuits.  The 
example  of  his  father,  a  successful  inventor  and  maker 
of  bank  locks,  decided  him  to  abandon  his  art  as  a  means 
of  making  a  living  and  devote  himself  exclusively  to 
lock-making. 

He  was  a  young  man  of  high  intelligence,  and  it 
did  not  take  him  long  to  obtain  a  mastery  of  the  busi- 
ness. Within  a  few  years  after  his  father's  death, 
Linus  Yale  had  become  the  leading  bank-lock  expert  in 
the  United  States. 

In  those  days  bank-locks  were  large,  very  intricate 
and  operated  by  keys.  Mr.  Yale,  soon  after  succeed- 
ing his  father,  produced  a  series  of  locks  of  this  type 
that  were  remarkable  for  their  ingenuity,  beautiful 
workmanship  and  security.  Known  as  "  Yale  Locks,'7 
they  were  distinguished  by  such  names  as  "  Infallible," 
"  Magic,"  "  Monitor,"  etc. 

The  famous  "  lock  controversy  "  which  arose  in  Eng- 
land during  the  World's  Fair  of  1851  when  the  Amer- 
ican, Hobbs,  succeeded  in  picking  the  best  English  bank 
locks  led  to  similar  contests  between  American  bank- 
lock  makers. 

The  young  locksmith  was  drawn  into  the  controversy 
and  after  first  discovering  how  to  pick  a  famous  English 
bank-lock,  discovered  also  how  to  pick  his  own  best 
bank-locks,  and  ended  by  demonstrating  that  any  lock 
having  a  keyhole  could  successfully  be  picked  by  one 
having  the  necessary  skill  and  tools. 

This  was  a  somewhat  disconcerting  discovery  for 
Linus  Yale,  the  bank-lock  expert,  to  'make,  but  it  led 
to  revolutionary  changes  'and  improvements  in  locks, 


344  FAMOUS  LEADEES  OF  INDUSTEY 

for  from  now  on  he  concentrated  his  attention  on  the 
combination,  or  dial  lock,  which  in  crude  forms  had 
been  known  for  centuries.  To  such  wonderful  per- 
fection did  he  bring  the  "  combination  "  lock,  that  the 
several  types  of  high-grade  bank  locks  developed  by 
Mr.  Yale  gave  his  company  world-leadership  in  the 
manufacture  of  bank  locks  —  locks  used  for  bank  safes, 
doors  and  vaults. 

The  "  Yale  "  lock,  now  so  familiar  on  the  front  doors 
of  residences  and  on  office  desks,  was  brought  to  per- 
fection by  Mr.  Yale  during  the  period  1860-64,  when 
he  brought  out  an  adaptation  of  the  old  Egyptian  "  tum- 
bler "  lock.  Its  greater  security  and  conveniently  small 
key  gave  it  great  popularity. 

The  evolution  in  bank  and  other  locks  thus  initiated 
by  Linus  Yale  has  been  continued  and  progressively  de- 
veloped to  this  day,  completely  revolutionizing  the 
world's  lock  industry. 

Mr.  Yale  was  of  medium  height  and  build,  quiet  and 
somewhat  reserved  in  manner  with  strangers.  Those 
privileged  to  know  him  intimately  testify  to  a  delight- 
ful personality,  responsive  nature  and  keen  apprecia- 
tion of  the  finer  aspects  of  life.  His  artistic  tempera- 
ment was  ever  in  evidence  and  his  note-books  were  filled 
with  sketches,  alternately  of  mechanical  ideas,  of  bits 
of  landscapes,  and  of  familiar  faces.  He  loved  to  fish 
and  knew  all  the  trout  streams  near  his  home.  Like 
many  inventors  or  mechanical  geniuses,  he  disliked  busi- 
ness and,  when  he  formed  his  partnership  with  Mr. 
Towne,  made  it  plain  that  he  wished  to  leave  the  re- 
sponsibility of  business  management  largely  to  him. 


LINUS  YALE  AND  HENRY  TOWNE      345 

This  partnership  was  formed  in  1868.  In  the  sum- 
mer of  this  year  a  mutual  friend  introduced  Mr.  Towne 
to  the  talented  and  ingenious  inventor  of  locks,  Linus 
Yale,  whose  business,  chiefly  in  bank  locks,  then  em- 
ployed only  thirty-five  men.  In  October,  at  Stamford, 
Conn.,  was  effected  the  organization,  with  Mr.  Yale 
as  president,  now  known  as  The  Yale  &  Towne  Manu- 
facturing Co. 

Three  months  later,  in  December,  1868,  Mr.  Yale 
died  suddenly  and  very  prematurely,  since  when  the 
enterprise  has  been  controlled  and  directed  by  Mr. 
Towne.  The  new  firm  inherited  Linus  Yale's  bril- 
liant ideas,  ideas  which  have  since  revolutionized  Amer- 
ican practice  in  lock  designing,  but  which  were  made 
commercially  practicable  only  by  Mr.  Towne's  remark- 
able business  sagacity.  Starting  with  Mr.  Yale's  radi- 
cal departure  from  the  old  methods  of  lock  construction, 
Mr.  Towne  has  greatly  amplified  these  original  fea- 
tures and  introduced  still  further  radical  changes  and 
designs. 

Boys  developed  rapidly  during  the  great  national 
upheaval  of  the  Civil  War,  and  those  equal  to  great 
responsibilities  found  the  opportunity  to  show  what 
kind  of  stuff  they  were  made  of.  The  rise  of  Henry 
R.  Towne,  Linus  Yale's  partner,  to  high  and  responsi- 
ble positions  was  one  of  unexampled  rapidity. 

Henry  R.  Towne  was  born  in  1844  in  Philadelphia, 
where  his  father  was  one  of  the  owners  and  operators 
of  the  Port  Richmond  Iron  Works.  Henry  was  an 
unusually  bright  and  intelligent  boy,  and,  after  his 
academic  studies  were  completed,  he  was  sent  to  the 


346     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

University  of  Pennsylvania.  The  War  of  Secession, 
however,  interrupted  his  studies,  and,  at  seventeen, 
he  entered  the  drafting-room  of  his  father's  iron  works. 
Such  rapid  progress  did  he  make  that  in  1863  he  was 
placed  in  charge  of  government  work  in  the  shops  in 
connection  with  repairs  on  the  U.  S.  gunboat  Massa- 
chusetts. 

The  Port  Richmond  Iron  Works  had  meanwhile  con- 
tracted to  furnish  the  engines  for  the  famous  old  moni- 
tor Monadnock,  and  in  1864,  Henry  (not  yet  twenty) 
was  sent  to  the  Charlestown  Navy  Yard  to  assemble 
and  erect  them  in  the  ship. 

Then  he  was  sent  to  the  Portsmouth  Navy  Yard  in 
sole  charge  of  erecting  and  testing  the  machinery  of 
the  monitor  Agamenticus  (now  Terror),  and  later  to 
the  Philadelphia  Navy  Yard  to  engine  the  cruiser  Push- 
mataha. 

These  were  tremendously  responsible  tasks  for  a 
youth,  but  he  did  them  so  extremely  well,  that,  though 
only  twenty-one,  he  was  made  acting  superintendent 
in  general  charge  of  the  shops  of  the  Port  Richmond 
Iron  Works,  the  concern  in  which  his  father  was  a 
partner. 

When  peace  came  young  Towne  realized  the  need  of 
further  and  more  exact  knowledge  in  many  lines  of 
study  which  the  war  had  interrupted.  So  he  became 
a  close  and  industrious  student  under  the  guidance  and 
instruction  of  the  late  Robert  Briggs,  C.  E.,  and  went 
with  him  on  an  engineering  tour  of  Great  Britain,  Bel- 
gium and  France.  Before  returning  he  took  a  special 
course  in  physics  at  the  Sorbonne,  Paris.  In  the  mean- 


HENRY   R.   TOWNE 


LINUS  YALE  AND  HENBY  TOWNE     347 

time,  his  father  had  retired  from  the  manufacturing 
business. 

After  returning  to  the  United  States,  Mr.  Towne 
spent  a  year  in  further  study  and  experimental  work 
with  Mr.  Briggs.  During  this  association  he  carried 
on  numerous  experiments  with  leather  belting,  the  re- 
sults of  which  were  accepted  as  standard  for  twenty 
years. 

Then,  for  further  education  in  the  designing  and 
use  of  special  machinery,  Mr.  Towne  entered  the  shop 
of  William  Sellers  &  Co.,  manufacturers  of  the  Gifford 
injectors.  A  year  or  so  later,  in  1868,  came  his  meet- 
ing with  Linus  Yale,  as  related. 

Mr.  Towne  has  been  the  chief  factor  in  the  growth 
and  development  of  the  business,  and  its  tremendous 
expansion  in  this  country  and  abroad  has  been  due  to 
his  unusual  combination  of  mechanical  with  business 
ability,  his  keen  foresight  and  untiring  efforts  to  main- 
tain a  product  and  service  of  high  excellence.  He 
brought  to  the  business  the  training  and  practice  of  a 
mechanical  engineer,  together  with  a  natural  aptitude 
for  organization  and  executive  management,  thus  ensur- 
ing success. 

Mr.  Towne  was  one  of  the  pioneers  in  the  improve- 
ment of  sanitary  and  other  conditions  in  factories,  and 
to-day  the  Yale  &  Towne  plant  at  Stamford,  Conn., 
with  its  gardens,  library,  hospital,  school,  employment 
bureau,  safety  devices,  etc.,  is  conceded  to  be  one  of 
America's  "  model  "  industrial  plants. 

During  the  war  the  Company,  in  addition  to  large 
quantities  of  its  normal  products,  such  as  padlocks, 


348  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

chainblocks,  etc.,  also  made,  for  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, rifle  grenades,  bomb-dropping  devices,  fuse- 
setters,  pumps,  cavalry  bits,  buckles,  fasteners,  etc.,  and 
special  parts  for  mines,  gas  nozzles,  etc. 

Some  interesting  statistics,  for  the  year  1916,  will 
give  some  idea  of  the  bigness  of  this  typical  American 
manufacturing  plant.  The  fifty-eight  buildings  at 
that  time  contained  four  thousand  eight  hundred  ma- 
chines and  eight  thousand  three  hundred  belts;  the 
plant's  consumption  in  peace  time  of  coal,  twenty  thou- 
sands tons;  fuel  oil,  six  hundred  thousand  gallons;  pig 
iron,  two  thousand  five  hundred  tons;  steel,  four  thou- 
sand three  hundred  tons;  copper,  one  million  six  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds;  lumber,  one  million  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  bd.  ft.,  and  water  one  hundred  and  fifty 
million  gallons. 

There  are  forty-five  thousand  varieties  of  products 
manufactured,  and  it  costs  almost  $100,000  to  print 
and  distribute  some  fifteen  thousand  copies  of  the  one 
thousand-page  catalog  describing  them. 

The  Works'  hospital  treated,  during  1916,  twenty- 
nine  thousand  six  hundred  and  fourteen  cases,  of 
which  eighteen  thousand  seven  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  were  surgical. 

The  plant  now  covers  twenty-five  acres  and  has  up- 
wards of  five  thousand  employees.  Half  a  century  ago, 
in  1868,  when  Linus  Yale  and  Henry  R.  Towne  founded 
the  business,  the  plant  covered  a  portion  of  five  acres  and 
had  thirty-five  employees. 

The  idea  of  stamping  the  word  YALE  in  a  coined  panel 
on  the  keys  and  all  other  products  of  this  company  was 


LINUS  YALE  AND  HENRY  TOWNE     349 

conceived  of  by  Mr.  Towne  in  1903,  and  there  are  few 
better-known  trademarks. 

The  company  operates  another  large  plant  in  Canada 
and  has  numerous  branches  abroad. 

The  guiding  principle  of  the  builders  of  this  great 
business  has  been  honesty  of  purpose  and  of  endeavor; 
for,  in  Mr.  Towne's  opinion,  "  There  is  no  legacy  so 
rich  as  honesty." 


ADOLPH  ZUKOR 

MOTION  PICTUKE  MAGNATE 


ADOLPH  ZUKOR 


ADOLPH  ZUKOR 

MOTION  PICTUEE  MAGNATE 

THE  boy  who  was  destined  to  control  the  world's 
moving-picture  industry  left  his  home  in  Hun- 
gary for  the  land  of  limitless  opportunities  in 
1890.  The  boy,  though  only  sixteen,  was  alone,  no  rela- 
tive or  friend  accompanied  him,  and  when  he  landed  at 
Castle  Garden,  New  York,  with  only  twenty-five  dollars 
in  his  pocket,  no  kith  or  kin  met  the  young  immigrant 
as  he  landed  upon  the  shores  of  the  New  World. 

The  boy  had  only  a  smattering  of  the  English  lan- 
guage, and  this  made  it  all  the  more  difficult  for  him 
to  get  a  job.  But  he  had  lots  of  grit,  and  the  re- 
peated turn-downs  did  not  discourage  him  in  the  least. 
One  day,  when  his  money  was  about  gone,  he  struck 
oil  —  got  a  job  at  $2.00  a  week  as  sweeper  in  a  fur 
store.  The  proprietor  liked  his  looks  —  his  firm,  res- 
olute mouth,  his  "I  can!"  jaw  and  keen  visionary 
eyes. 

This  was  not  a  very  dignified  position  for  the  lad 
Zukor  —  the  future  industrial  captain  —  but  he  put 
"  pep  " —  individuality  —  into  his  task,  worked  hard, 
studied  diligently  at  night,  and  as  a  result  advanced 
rapidly.  He  then  invented  a  patent  snap  for  furs,  and 
this  again  greatly  improved  his  position  and  especially 

his  pocket-book. 

353 


354  FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

In  1894,  when  only  twenty  years  old,  Adolph  Zukor 
went  to  Chicago  and  embarked  in  the  fur  trade  for 
himself.  It  was  here  that  he  met  his  future  wife  to 
whom  he  was  married  in  1897.  He  was  so  successful 
as  a  furrier,  that  his  friends  began  to  speak  of  him  as 
having  made  his  fortune  —  little  dreaming  that  the 
youngster  was  merely  on  the  threshold  of  a  career  soon 
to  put  him  in  control  of  many  millions  of  dollars  and 
thousands  of  employees,  to  some  of  whom  he  was  to 
pay  fabulous  salaries. 

In  1903  the  young  fur  dealer  returned  to  New  York, 
where  before  long  he  began  to  get  dissatisfied  with  the 
fur  business.  It  was  too  slow  for  a  man  of  his  restless 
ambition.  He  wanted  to  make  more  money  and  make 
it  faster.  So  he  began  to  look  around  for  some  oppor- 
tunity in  which  he  could  invest  his  small  capital,  and 
make  some  "  big  money  "  on  it. 

And  now  came  Adolph  Zukor's  Great  Opportunity. 
One  of  his  cousins,  who  had  started  a  penny  arcade,  in- 
duced him  to  investigate  its  possibilities.  One  of  the 
first  things  the  shrewd  young  furrier  noticed  was  the 
penny-in-the-slot  machine's  ability  to  amass  money  rap- 
idly. Patrons  crowded  around  the  machines,  parting 
with  any  coppers  they  happened  to  have  in  their  pock- 
ets, their  curiosity  increasing  with  each  investment. 
All  day  and  all  the  evening  pennies  were  dropping  into 
the  machines  in  an  unending  stream.  The  masses,  at 
a  cost  so  slight  as  not  to  be  felt,  were  patronizing  this 
new  form  of  amusement  —  and  Zukor,  watching  the 
procession  of  visitors  to  the  arcade,  saw  millions  in  it. 

Here  was  a  way  of  getting  a  quicker  return  on  an 


ADOLPH  ZUKOE  355 

investment  than  anything  he  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of 
—  something  like  "  coining  money  "  he  thought. 

Zukor  at  once  bought  one  of  the  machines,  and  it 
proved  so  popular  that  he  decided  to  venture  deeper. 
So  he  got  a  man  named  Marcus  Loew,  also  a  furrier, 
whom  he  knew  pretty  well,  to  go  partners  with  him  in 
a  penny-arcade  business.  Starting  with  nine  in  New 
York  City,  the  young  men  before  long  had  a  chain  of 
arcade  shows,  extending  to  other  cities.  Thus  was 
founded  the  Marcus  Loew  enterprises,  with  Adolph 
Zukor  treasurer,  operating  theaters  all  over  the  East. 

But  before  this  expansion  in  their  penny-arcade  busi- 
ness came  about,  Adolph  Zukor  was  to  discover  the 
"  movies  "  and  their  marvelous  possibilities. 

The  life  of  the  photo-play,  when  Zukor  first  saw  one, 
was  trembling  in  the  balance.  A  great  novelty  at  first, 
the  public  soon  began  to  lose  interest,  for  the  pictures 
were  crude,  and  there  were  not  enough  of  them  pro- 
duced to  give  variety.  People  got  tired  of  seeing  the 
same  play  over  and  over  again. 

Nevertheless,  Mr.  Zukor's  faith  in  moving  pictures 
was  born,  a  faith  which  has  increased  by  leaps  and 
bounds,  with  the  growth  of  the  mighty  industry  he  con- 
trols. He  installed  moving  pictures  in  his  amusement 
places,  and  very  quickly  realized  that  the  screen  was 
doomed  unless  the  standard  was  raised  —  unless  bet- 
ter pictures  were  produced.  The  public  was  tired  of 
"  Fourth  Eeader  story  films " !  So  he  wrote  to  the 
companies  that  were  making  motion  pictures,  begging 
them  for  a  finer  type  of  play,  and,  not  getting  them,  he 
delivered  his  famous  ultimatum: 


356     FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY 

"  If  you  don't  give  me  better  pictures,  I'll  make  them 
myself!" 

The  photo-play  producers  laughed;  the  prophet  of 
the  new  art  was  called  a  "  visionary."  But  behind  that 
faraway  look  in  young  Zukor's  eye  was  a  glint  that  be- 
tokened a  shrewd  and  practical  mind,  aggressive  and 
ready  for  battle.  He  at  last  waked  up  some  of  the 
manufacturers,  with  the  result  that  he  got  better  plays, 
and  then,  slowly,  the  public  came  back. 

Then  he  conceived  the  great  idea  of  getting  well- 
known  plays  and  players  for  the  movies.  He  was 
laughed  at,  at  first,  for  what  well-known  actor  or  ac- 
tress would  condescend  to  appear,  voiceless,  to  a  five- 
and  ten-cent  audience! 

After  several  unsuccessful  attempts,  Zukor  finally 
got  Daniel  Frohman,  the  famous  theatrical  manager,  in- 
terested in  his  project,  and  then  Frohman  had  the  hard 
task  of  overcoming  the  prejudice  of  the  actors  them- 
selves. Finding  this  well-nigh  impossible  Zukor  and 
Frohman  decided  that  the  only  thing  to  do  was  to  get 
the  greatest  actress  of  all,  Sarah  Bernhardt,  to  play  in 
a  silent  drama.  This  they  succeeded  in  doing  at  great 
expense,  and  afterwards  had  no  difficulty  in  inducing 
other  famous  theatrical  stars  to  follow  her  example. 

Thus  was  the  Famous  Players  Film  Company  formed 
with  Daniel  Frohman  as  managing  director.  Their 
first  play,  Sarah  Bernhardt  in  "  Queen  Elizabeth," 
was  followed  by  James  K.  Hackett  in  "  The  Prisoner 
of  Zenda,"  and  then  came  Julia  Marlowe,  Viola  Allen, 
Mrs.  Leslie  Carter,  Ethel  Barrymore,  and  many  others 
in  their  most  popular  roles. 


JESSE   L.   LASKY 


ADO;LPH  ZUKOK  357 

Mr.  Zukor' s  success  in  his  theory  —  once  thought  fan- 
tastic —  that  "  nothing  is  too  good  for  the  public,"  led 
to  considerable  imitation,  and  a  number  of  other  firms 
and  companies  entered  the  same  field.  In  1916  these 
were  absorbed  by  Mr.  Zukor  and  his  associates,  the  new 
concern  being  called  The  Famous  Players-Lasky  Cor- 
poration, Adolph  Zukor,  president,  and  Jesse  L.  Lasky, 
vice-president  in  charge  of  productions. 

It  was  but  a  few  years  back,  in  1903,  that  Adolph 
Zukor  and  Marcus  Loew  caused  wonderment  in  New 
York  by  leasing  the  old  Grand  Street  Theater  on  the 
East  Side  and  turning  it  into  a  motion-picture  theater, 
selling  out  in  a  few  months  at  a  profit  of  $100,000. 

To-day  the  corporation  of  which  Mr.  Zukor  is  the 
head  stages  its  plays  in  countless  newly-built  and  spe- 
cially designed  playhouses,  from  Maine  to  California, 
featuring  such  well-known  and  successful  actors  and 
actresses  as  Mary  Pickford,  Hazel  Dawn,  Pauline  Fred- 
erick, Billie  Burke,  Jack  Barrymore,  and  the  grand- 
opera  star,  Geraldine  Farrar.  More  than  five  million 
people  a  day  see  the  "  movies  "  in  more  than  eight  thou- 
sand theaters  throughout  the  United  States. 

And  Mr.  Zukor,  whose  word  is  law  in  film  fairyland, 
now  counts  his  wealth  in  millions. 

His  name  stands  out  in  bold  relief  in  the  annals  of 
American  Jewry  as  one  of  the  finest  examples  of  what 
an  immigrant  may  accomplish  in  the  United  States 
despite  poverty,  lack  of  friends  and  prospects. 

For  in  less  than  twenty  years  after  landing  in  Amer- 
ica, Adolph  Zukor  was  rich  and  famous. 

THE    END 


SMILES,  A  ROSE  OF  THE 
CUMBERLANDS 

$y  Eliot  Harlow  Robinson 

Author  of  "Man  Proposes" 
Cloth   decorative,   i2mo,  illustrated,  $1.50 


Smiles  is  a  girl  that  is  sure  to  make  friends.  Her 
real  name  is  Rose,  but  the  rough  folk  of  the  Cumber- 
lands  preferred  their  own  way  of  addressing  her,  for 
her  smile  was  so  bright  and  winning  that  no  other  name 
suited  her  so  well. 

Smiles  was  not  a  native  of  the  Cumberlands,  and  her 
parentage  is  one  of  the  interesting  mysteries  of  the 
story.  Young  Dr.  MacDonald  saw  more  in  her  than 
the  mere  untamed,  untaught  child  of  the  mountains 
and  when,  due  to  the  death  of  her  foster  parents  a 
guardian  became  necessary,  he  was  selected.  Smiles 
developed  into  a  charming,  serious-minded  young  wo- 
man, and  the  doctor's  warm  friend,  Dr.  Bently,  falls  in 
love  with  her. 

We  do  not  want  to  detract  from  the  pleasure  of 
reading  this  story  by  telling  you  how  this  situation  was 
met,  either  by  Smiles  or  Dr.  MacDonald  —  but  there 
is  a  surprise  or  two  for  the  reader. 

Press  opinions  on  "Man  Proposes": 

"Readers  will  find  not  only  an  unusually  interest- 
ing story,  but  one  of  the  most  compjicated  romances 
ever  dreamed  of.  Among  other  things  the  story  gives 
a  splendid  and  realistic  picture  of  high  social  life  in 
Newport,  where  many  of  the  incidents  of  the  plot  are 
staged  in  the  major  part  of  the  book."  —  The  Bookman. 

"It  is  well  written;  the  characters  are  real  people  and 
the  whole  book  has  '  go.'  "  —  Louisville  Post. 


8386080830O8K8GB 


TWEEDIE,  THE  STORY  OF 
A  TRUE  HEART 

®y  hla  May  Mullins 


Author  of  "  The  Blossom  Shop  Stories"  etc. 
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In  this  story  Mrs.  Mullins  has  given  us  another  de- 
lightful story  of  the  South. 

The  Carlton  family  —  lovable  old  Professor  Carl- 
ton,  and  his  rather  wilful  daughter  Ruth  —  twenty- 
three  years  old  and  with  decided  ideas  as  to  her  future 
—  decide  to  move  to  the  country  in  order  to  have  more 
time  to  devote  to  writing. 

Many  changes  come  to  them  while  in  the  country, 
the  greatest  of  which  is  Tweedie  —  a  simple,  unpreten- 
tious little  body  who  is  an  optimist  through  and 
through  —  but  does  not  know  it.  In  a  subtle,  amus- 
ing way  Tweedie  makes  her  influence  felt.  At  first 
some  people  would  consider  her  a  pest,  but  would 
finally  agree  with  the  Carlton  family  that  she  was 
"  Unselfishness  Incarnate."  It  is  the  type  of  story 
that  will  entertain  and  amuse  both  old  and  young. 

The  press  has  commented  on  Mrs.  Mullins'  previous 
books  as  follows : 

"Frankly  and  wholly  romance  is  this  book,  and 
lovable  —  as  is  a  fairy  tale  properly  told.  And  the 
book's  author  has  a  style  that's  all  her  own,  that 
strikes  one  as  praiseworthily  original  throughout."  — 
Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

"A  rare  and  gracious  picture  of  the  unfolding  of  life 
for  the  young  girl,  told  with  a  delicate  sympathy  and 
understanding  that  must  touch  alike  the  hearts  of 
young  and  old."  —  Louisville  (Ky.)  Times. 


ONLY  HENRIETTA 


Lela  Horn  Richards 


Author  of  "Blue  Bonnet  —  Debutante"  etc. 
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Henrietta  was  the  victim  of  circumstances.  It  was 
not  her  fault  that  her  father,  cut  off  from  his  expected 
inheritance  because  of  his  marriage,  was  unexpectedly 
thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  nor  that  he  proved  to 
be  a  weakling  who  left  his  wife  and  daughter  to  shift 
for  themselves,  nor  that  her  mother  took  refuge  in 
Colorado  far  away  from  their  New  England  friends  and 
acquaintances.  Youth,  however,  will  overcome  much, 
and  when  Richard  Bently  appears  in  the  mountains, 
life  takes  on  a  new  interest  for  Henrietta. 

When  her  mother  dies  Henrietta  goes  to  live  with 
Mrs.  Lovell,  who  knew  her  father  years  ago  in  the 
little  Vermont  town.  Mrs.  Lovell  determines  to  do 
what  she  can  to  secure  for  Henrietta  the  place  in 
society  and  the  inheritance  that  is  rightfully  hers. 
The  means  employed  and  the  success  attained  —  but 
that's  the  story. 

"  Only  Henrietta  "  is  written  in  the  happy  vein  that 
has  secured  for  Mrs.  Richards  a  host  of  friends  and 
admirers,  and  is  sure  to  duplicate  the  earlier  suc- 
cesses achieved  for  the  young  people  by  the  Blue 
Bonnet  Series. 

"The  chief  charm  of  the  book  is  that  it  contains  so 
much  of  human  nature  and  it  is  a  book  that  will  gladden 
the  hearts  of  many  girl  readers  because  oi  its  charming 
air  of  comradeship  and  reality."  —  The  Churchman^ 
Detroit,  Mich. 

vsxa&a^^ 


THE  AMBASSADOR'S  TRUNK 


George  Barton 


Author  of  "  The  World's  Greatest  Military  Spies  and 

Secret  Service  Agents"  " The  Mystery  of  the, 

Red  Flame"  " The  Strange  Adventures 

of  Bromley  Barnes"  etc. 
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Bromley  Barnes,  retired  chief  of  the  Secret  Service, 
an  important  State  document,  a  green  wallet,  the 
Ambassador's  trunk  —  these  are  the  ingredients,  which, 
properly  mixed,  and  served  in  attractive  format  and 
binding,  produce  a  draught  that  will  keep  you  awake 
long  past  your  regular  bedtime. 

Mr.  Barton  is  master  of  the  mystery  story,  and  in  this 
absorbing  narrative  the  author  has  surpassed  his  best 
previous  successes. 

"It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  collection  of  more 
interesting  tales  of  mystery  so  well  told.  The  author 
is  crisp,  incisive  and  inspiring.  The  book  is  the  best 
of  its  kind  in  recent  years  and  adds  to  the  author's 
already  high  reputation."  —  New  York  Tribune. 

"The  story  is  full  of  life  and  movement,  and  pre- 
sents a  variety  of  interesting  characters.  It  is  well  pro- 
portioned and  subtly  strong  in  its  literary  aspects  and 
quality.  This  volume  adds  great  weight  to  the  claim 
that  Mr.  Barton  is  among  America's  greatest  novelists 
of  the  romantic  school;  and  in  many  ways  he  is  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  most  versatile  and  interesting 
writers."  —  Boston  Post. 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
OF  PETER  FLINT 

By  Harold  Whitehead 


Assistant  Professor  of  ^  Business  Method,  The  College 

of    Business    Administration,    Boston    University, 

author  of  "  Daws  on  Black,  Retail^  Merchant" 

"Principles      of      Salesmanship,"      etc. 

Illustrated,  cloth,  I2mo,  $1.65 


As  Assistant  Professor  of  Business  Method  in  Boston 
University's  famous  College  of  Business  Administration, 
the  author's  lectures  have  attracted  widespread  atten- 
tion, and  the  popularity  of  his  stories  of  business  life, 
under  the  title  of  "  The  Business  Career  of  Peter  Flint," 
which  have  appeared  serially  in  important  trade  mag- 
azines and  newspapers  all  over  the  country,  has  created 
an  insistent  demand  for  their  book  publication. 

The  public  demand  for  these  stories  compelled  the 
author  to  continue  them  so  long  that,  were  they  all 
published  in  book  form,  they  would  constitute  a  set  of 
several  volumes.  By  careful  and  scrutinizing  editorial 
work  the  author  has  recast  the  very  best  of  this  material 
for  book  publication,  the  result  being  a  story  that  is 
virile,  compelling  and  convincing  as  it  leads  the  reader 
through  the  maze  of  business  entanglements. 

A  New  York  business  man  wrote:  "  I  have  read  with 
much  interest  the  '  Career  of  Peter  Flint,'  appearing  in 
the  Evening  Sun. 

"  Having  come  to  New  York  fresh  from  college 
twelve  years  ago,  I  appreciate  fully  Peter's  experience. 
I  want  to  say  that  I  think  your  knowledge  of  human 
nature  almost  uncanny." 


ROLLO'S  JOURNEY  TO 
WASHINGTON 


2)y  Richard  D.  Ware 


Illustrated  with   unique   woodcuts   by   Robert   Seaver.  g 
Price  $1.25 


The  boy  of  yesterday  —  the  man  of  today  —  knows 
the  Rollo  books,  and  is  familiar  with  the  method  by 
which  the  mind  of  young  Master  Mollycoddle  was 
improved  by  the  guidance  and  precepts  of  his  father 
and  Uncle  George.  Those  who  survived  such  a  course 
of  purification  and  still  live  will  enjoy  this  story  of 
Rollo's  journey  to  our  national  capital. 

It  is  not  written  for  the  young  in  years,  but  for  the 
young  in  heart  —  for  the  good  citizen  who  can  see  the 
funny  side  of  a  situation  that  is  serious,  and  can  laugh 
at  the  mistakes  and  foibles  of  our  great  men  of  today 
without  malice  or  viciousness. 

The  book  is  about  the  Great  War  which  has  caused 
so  many  tears  of  sorrow,  and  the  author's  only  desire 
is  to  replace  those  bitter  tears  with  tears  of  mirth. 


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WORKS  OF 

ELEANOR  H.  PORTER 

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POLLYANNA:  The  GLAD  Book  (430,000) 

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the  Philadelphia  North  American,  says:  "And  when,  after 
Polly  anna  has  gone  away,  you  get  her  letter  saying  she  is 
going  to  take  'eight  steps '  tomorrow  —  well,  I  don't  know  just 
what  you  may  do,  but  I  know  of  one  person  who  buried  his 
face  in  his  hands  and  shook  with  the  gladdest  sort  of  sadness 
and  got  down  on  his  knees  and  thanked  the  Giver  of  all 
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POLLYANNA  appears  again,  just  as  sweec  and  joyous-hearted, 
more  grown  up  and  more  lovable. 

"  Take  away  frowns !  Put  down  the  worries !  Stop  fidgeting 
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ANNA  has  come  back!  "  —  Christian  Herald. 


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LIST  OF  FICTION 


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THE  STORY  GIRL  (loth  printing) 

"  A  book  that  holds  one's  interest  and  keeps  a  kindly  smile 
upon  one's  lips  and  in  one's  heart."  —  Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

KILMENY   OF   THE    ORCHARD    (lath  printing) 

"  A  story  born  in  the  heart  of  Arcadia  and  brimful  of  the 
sweet  life  of  the  primitive  environment"  —  Boston  Herald. 

THE   GOLDEN   ROAD    (6th  printing) 

"  It  is  a  simple,  tender  tale,  touched  to  higher  notes,  now 
and  then,  by  delicate  hints  of  romance,  tragedy  and  pathos."  — 
Chicago  Record-Herald. 


THE  PAGE  COMPANY'S 


NOVELS  BY 

ISLA  MAY   MULLINS 

Each,  one  volume,  cloth  decorative,  12mo,  illustrated,  $1.65 

THE  BLOSSOM  SHOP:  A  Story  of  the  South 

"  Frankly  and  wholly  romance  is  this  book,  and  lovable  —  as 
is  a  fairy  tale  properly  told."  —  Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

ANNE  OF  THE  BLOSSOM  SHOP:  Or,  the  Growing 
Up  of  Anne  Carter 

"A  charming  portrayal  of  the  attractive  life  of  the  South, 
refreshing  as  a  breeze  that  blows  through  a  pine  forest."  — 
Albany  Times-Union. 

ANNE'S  WEDDING 

"  Tke  story  is  most  beautifully  told.  It  brings  in  most 
charming  people,  and  presents  a  picture  of  home  life  that  is 
most  appealing  in  love  and  affection."  —  Every  Evening,  Wil- 
mington, Del. 

THE  MT.  BLOSSOM  GIRLS 

"  In  the  writing  of  the  book  the  author  is  at  her  best  as  a 
story  teller.  The  humor  that  ripples  here  and  there,  the 
dramatic  scenes  that  stir,  and  the  golden  thread  of  romance 
that  runs  through  it  all,  go  to  make  a  marked  success.  It  is  a 
fitting  climax  to  the  series."  —  Reader. 

NOVELS  BY 

DAISY  RHODES  CAMPBELL 
THE  FIDDLING  GIRL 

Cloth  decorative,  illustrated  $1.6'5 

"A  thoroughly  enjoyable  tale,  written  in  a  delightful  vein 
of  sympathetic  comprehension."  —  Boston  Herald. 

THE  PROVING  OF  VIRGINIA 

Cloth  decorative,  illustrated  $1.65 

"  A  book  which  contributes  so  much  of  freshness,  enthusiasm, 

and  healthy  life  to  offset  the  usual  offerings  of  modern  fiction, 

deserves  all   the   praise   which  can  be   showered   upon   it."  — 

Kindergarten  Review. 

THE  VIOLIN  LADY 

Cloth  decorative,  illustrated  $1.05 

"  The  author's  style  remains  simple  and  direct,  as  in  her  pre- 
ceding books,  and  her  frank  affection  for  her  attractive  heroine 
will  be  shared  by  many  others."  —  Boston  Transcript. 


LIST   OF  FICTION 


NOVELS  BY 

MARY    ELLEN    CHASE 
THE    GIRL    FROM    THE    BIG    HOkN    COUNTRY 

Cloth  12mo,  illustrated  by  E.  Farrington  Elwell. 

$1.50 

" '  The  Girl  from  the  Big  Horn  Country '  tells  how  Virginia 
Hunter,  a  bright,  breezy,  frank-hearted  'girl  of  the  Golden 
West '  comes  out  of  the  Big  Horn  country  of  Wyoming  to  the 
old  Bay  State.  Then  things  begin,  when  Virginia  —  who  feels 
the  joyous,  exhilarating  call  of  the  Big  Horn  wilderness  and 
the  outdoor  life  —  attempts  to  become  acclimated  and  adopt 
good  old  New  England  '  ways.'  "  —  Critic. 

VIRGINIA,    OF   ELK   CREEK   VALLEY 

Cloth  12mo,  illustrated  by  E.  Farrington  Elwell. 

$1.50 

"This  story  is  fascinating,  alive  with  constantly  new  and 
fresh  interests  and  every  reader  will  enjoy  the  novel  for  its 
freshness,  its  novelty  and  its  inspiring  glimpses  of  life  with 
nature."  —  The  Editor. 

NOVELS  BY 

MRS.    HENRY   BACKUS 
THE    CAREER   OF   DOCTOR   WEAVER 

Cloth  decorative,  illustrated  by  William  Van  Dresser. 

$1.50 

"High  craftsmanship  is  the  leading  characteristic  of  this 
novel,  which,  like  all  good  novels,  is  a  love  story  abounding  in 
real  palpitant  human  interest.  The  most  startling  feature  of 
the  story  is  the  way  its  author  has  torn  aside  the  curtain  and 
revealed  certain  phases  of  the  relation  between  the  medical  pro- 
fession and  society."  —  Dr.  Charles  Reed  in  the  Lancet  Clinic. 
THE  ROSE  OF  ROSES 

Cloth  decorative,  with  a  frontispiece  in  full  color. 

$1.50 

The  author  has  achieved  a  thing  unusual  in  developing  a  love 
story  which  adheres  to  conventions  under  unconventional  cir- 
cumstances. 

"  Mrs.  Backus'  novel  is  distinguished  in  the  first  place  for  its 
workmanship."  —  Buffalo  Evening  News. 

A   PLACE   IN   THE    SUN 

Cloth  decorative,  illustrated  by  William  Van  Drawer. 

$1.50 

"  A  novel  of  more  than  usual  meaning."  —  Detroit  Free  Fret*. 

"  A  stirring  story  of  America  of  to-day,  which  will  be  enjored 
by  young  people  with  the  tingle  of  youth  in  their  veins."  -. 
Zion's  Herald,  Boston. 


THE   PAGE    COMPANY'S 


NOVELS  BY 

MARGARET   R.    PIPER 
SYLVIA'S   EXPERIMENT:   The  Cheerful  Book 

Trade  Mark 

Cloth  decorative,  with  a  frontispiece  in  full  color  from  a 
painting  by  Z.  P.  Nikolaki  $1.50 

"An   atmosphere   of   good   spirits  pervades  the  book;   the 

humor  that  now  and  then  flashes  across  the  page  is  entirely 

natural,  and  the  characters  are  well  individualized."  —  Boston 

Post. 
"It  has  all  the  merits  of  a  bright,  clever  style  with  plenty 

of  action  and  humor."  —  Western  Trade  Journal,  Chicago,  III. 

SYLVIA  Otf  THE  HILL  TOP:   The  Second  Cheerful 

Book  Trade Mark 

Cloth  decorative,  with  a  frontispiece  in  full  color  from  a 
painting  by  Gene  Pressler  $1.50 

"  There  is  a  world  of  human  nature  and  neighborhood  con- 
tentment and  quaint  quiet  humor  in  Margaret  R.  Piper's  second 
book  of  good  cheer."  —  Philadelphia  North  American. 

"  The  bright  story  is  told  with  freshness  and  humor,  and  the 
experiment  is  one  that  will  appeal  to  the  imagination  of  all  to 
whom  the  festival  of  Christmas  is  dear."  —  Boston  Herald,  Bos- 
ton, Mass. 

"Sylvia  proves  practically  that  she  is  a  messenger  of  joy  to 
humanity."  —  The  Post  Express,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

SYLVIA   ARDEN   DECIDES:    The  Third   Cheerful 

B00k  Trade Mark 

Cloth  decorative,  with  a  frontispiece  in  full  color  from  a 

painting  by  Haskell  Coffin  $1.50 

"It  is  excellently  well  done  and  unusually  interesting.    The 

incidents  follow  one  another  in  rapid  succession  and  are  kept 

up  to  the  right  pitch  of  interest."  —  N.  Y.  American. 

"  Its  ease  of  style,  its  rapidity,  its  interest  from  page  to  page, 
are  admirable ;  and  it  shows  that  inimitable  power  — •  the  story- 
teller's gift  of  verisimilitude.  Its  sureness  and  clearness  are 
excellent,  and  its  portraiture  clear  and  pleasing." — The  Reader. 
"  It  is  an  extremely  well  told  story,  made  up  of  interesting 
situations  and  the  doings  of  life-like  people,  and  you  will  find 
it  very  easy  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  different  characters 
through  its  varied  scenes."  —  Boston  Herald. 


LIST   OP   FICTION 


WORKS    OF 

CHARLES    G.    D.    ROBERTS 

HAUNTERS    OF   THE    SILENCES 

Cloth  decorative,  with  many  drawings  by  Charles  Livingston 
Bull,  four  of  which  are  in  full  color.  «"•»  *0 

The  stories  in  Mr.  Roberts's  new  collection  are  the  strongest 
and  best  he  has  ever  written. 

He  has  largely  taken  for  his  subjects  those  animals  rarely 
met  with  in  books,  whose  lives  are  spent  "  In  the  Silences," 
where  they  are  the  supreme  rulers. 

"  As  a  writer  about  animals,  Mr.  Roberts  occupies  an  envi- 
able place.  He  is  the  most  literary,  as  well  as  the  most  imag- 
inative and  vivid  of  all  the  nature  writers."  —  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

RED    FOX 

THE  STORY  OF  His  ADVENTUROUS  CAREER  IN  THE  RINGWAAK 
WILDS,  AND  OF  His  FINAL  TRIUMPH  OVER  THE  ENEMIES  OF 
His  KIND.     With  fifty  illustrations,  including  frontispiece  in 
color  and  cover  design  by  Charles  Livingston  Bull. 
Square  quarto,  cloth  decorative  $2.50 

"  True  in  substance,  but  fascinating  as  fiction.  It  will  inter- 
est old  and  young,  city-bound  and  free-footed,  those  who  knew 
animals  and  those  who  do  not."  —  Chicago  Record-Herald. 

THE    KINDRED    OF    THE    WILD 

A  BOOK  OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.     With  fifty-one  full-page  plates 

and  many  decorations  from  drawings  by  Charles  Livingston 

Bull. 

Square  quarto,  cloth  decorative  $2.50 

"  Is  in  many  ways  the  most  brilliant  collection  of  animal 

stories  that  has  appeared;  well  named  and  well  done."  —  John 

Burroughs. 

THE  WATCHERS  OF  THE  TRAILS 

A  companion  volume  to  "  The  Kindred  of  the  Wild."  With 
forty-eight  full-page  plates  and  many  decorations  from 
drawings  by  Charles  Livingston  Bull. 

Square  quarto,  cloth  decorative  $2.50 

"  These   stories   are  exquisite  in  their  refinement,  and  yet 

robust  in  their  appreciation  of  some  of  the  rougher  phases  of 

woodcraft.     Among  the  many  writers  about  animals,  Mr.  Ro^- 

erts  occupies  an  enviable  place."  —  The  Outlook. 


THE   PAGE   COMPANY'S 


THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  WATER 

With  thirty  full-page  illustrations  by  Charles  Livingston  Bull 
and  Frank  Vining  Smith.  Cover  design  and  decorations  b7 
Charles  Livingston  Bull. 

Library  12mo,  cloth  decorative  $2.00 

"  Every  paragraph  is  a  splendid  picture,  suggesting  in  a  few 
words  the  appeal  of  the  vast,  illimitable  wilderness."  —  The 
Chicago  Tribune. 

"  This  is  a  book  full  of  delight.  An  additional  charm  lies  in 
Mr.  Bull's  faithful  and  graphic  illustrations,  which  in  fashion 
all  their  own  tell  the  story  of  the  wild  life,  illuminating  and 
supplementing  the  pen  pictures  of  the  author."  —  Literary 
Digest. 

THE  HEART  THAT  KNOWS 

Library  12mo,  cloth  decorative  .....  $1.75 
"  A  novel  of  singularly  effective  strength,  luminous  in  liter- 

ary color,  rich  in  its  passionate,  yet  tender  drama."  —  New  York 

Globe. 

EARTH'S  ENIGMAS 

A  new  edition  of  Mr.  Roberta's  first  volume  of  fiction,  pub- 
lished in  1892,  and  out  of  print  for  several  years,  with  the 
addition  of  three  new  stories,  and  ten  illustrations  by  Charles 
Livingston  Bull. 

Library  12mo,  cloth  decorative  .....  $1.75 
"It  will  rank  high  among  collections  of  short  stories.  In 
'Earth's  Enigmas'  is  a  wider  range  of  subjects  than  in  the 
'  Kindred  of  the  Wild.'  "  —  Review  from  advance  sheets  of  the 
illustrated  edition  by  Tiffany  Blake  in  the  Chicago  Evening 
Post. 

BARBARA  LADD 

With  four  illustrations  by  Frank  Verbeck. 

Library  12mo,  cloth  decorative  .....    $1.75 

"  From  the  opening  chapter  to  the  final  page  Mr.  Roberts 
lures  us  on  by  his  rapt  devotion  to  the  changing  aspects  of 
Nature  and  by  his  keen  and  sympathetic  analysis  of  human 
character."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

"A  very  fine  novel.  We  unhesitatingly  pronounce  it  .  .  . 
one  of  the  books  that  stamp  themselves  at  once  upon  the  imag- 
ination, and  remain  imbedded  in  the  memory  long  after  the 
covers  are  closed."  —  Literary  World,  Boston. 


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